


Omnifusion: Adventure

by Cheeb



Category: Ben 10 Series, Steven Universe (Cartoon), ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Steven Universe Fusion, Ben 10 Classic, Ben 10: Alien Force, Ben 10: Omniverse, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 6: Stone Ocean, Post-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders, Steven Universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 42,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheeb/pseuds/Cheeb
Summary: Ben Tennyson's summer vacation was made a bit more exciting than he thought. Steven Universe and his family of Gems tag along. On top of that, Ben finds a device that lets him turn into 10 different aliens.





	1. Chapter 1

“Finally!” said Ben exiting his school, “Last day, OVER!” He was then run into by a crowd of high schoolers. Ben recovered and rubbed his forehead, he looked and saw his Grandpa’s familiar RV, “Grandpa Max?”  
An old man in a red Hawaiian shirt stepped out and said, “Hey kiddo!”  
Ben ran up and hugged his grandfather, “I am so excited! I’ve been waiting all summer for… uh.” Ben looked over and saw a redhead in a purple shirt with a cat printed on the front, “Hey… Gwen.”  
Gwen was staring at her phone, she just said “Hey,” without looking away.  
“Uh, Grandpa? Why is she here?”  
Max chuckled and said, “Sorry about that, her parents said you two need some quality time together.”  
Ben put on a fake smile and said, “Great.”  
“Well, she isn't the only one joining us!”  
“Aww man, don’t tell me Clyde’s in there too!”  
“Oh no, they’re old friends of mine, I told him to meet us here though…”  
Just then, a different, newer RV showed up, out came a round man with long, flowing hair (and a bald spot on the top), “Sorry Max, Amethyst messed up the GPS on the van.  
A short woman with purple skin and lavender hair stepped out, “Aww come on Greg! I was trying to find the games on it!” she chuckled.  
A tall, thin woman with pale skin came out, “Amethyst, you were just pressing every button on the dashboard, I don’t see how you’re so fascinated with wrecking things.”  
An even taller woman with Sunglasses and a square afro came out, “Both of you, stop fighting, this is supposed to be a fun road trip. So we are going to have fun!”  
Finally, 2 kids walked out, a short, chubby boy with a red T-shirt that had a yellow Star in the center, and a girl with black hair and a white button-up shirt.  
“I can’t believe we’re gonna see the whole world!” said the short boy.  
Greg laughed, “We’re just going across America Steven, don’t wanna go too overboard for your first road trip!”  
Ben stared at the… colorful people in front of him, “So uh… these are your friends?” said Ben looking at his grandfather.  
Before Max could speak the 3 women lined up next to each other, the tallest said, “We are the Crystal Gems!” She showed off her palms which had 2 glowing gemstones, “Garnet!”  
The purple one showed the Gem on her chest by moving her shirt out of the way, “Amethyst!”  
The last one’s Gem on her forehead glowed as she struck a dramatic pose, “And Pearl!”  
The boy ran up and moved up his shirt to show a Gem on his stomach, “And Steven!”  
Finally, the young girl walked up next to Steven, “And um… Connie!”  
“Wow.” said Ben, “You really got a big family… how do you all fit in there?”  
Garnet waved her hand and said, “Magic”  
“Pssh,” said Gwen, “Magic isn’t real.”  
“Of course you’d think that. It isn't exactly common knowledge,” explained Pearl.  
Max walked over to Greg, “Are you sure it was a good idea to bring all the Gems?” he whispered.  
Greg shrugged, “Pearl wouldn’t let me take Steven and Connie without her going, Amethyst wanted to come with… so did Garnet… But they put a duplicate of that door thing from the Temple into the RV, so they have plenty of room.”  
After getting acquainted with each other, they all grouped into their RVs and set out for their long adventure.  
"So…" Began Ben, "how did you meet them?"  
Max laughed, "That really takes me back, Greg's wife was in the same plumbing business I was in, we would get together a lot. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are like their family too… it's a bit complicated."  
"Where's Steven's Mom?"  
Max cleared his throat, "Rose is uh… not with us anymore."  
Ben's face turned red, "Oh… sorry for bringing it up."  
"It's fine Ben, you didn't know. We should be nearing the campsite soon though!”  
The RV Stopped, Greg’s stopping right behind. Everyone unloaded their vehicles, Garnet held a group of tents above her head, Pearl carried supplies for a fire, while Amethyst took all the food.  
Ben looked around, and sighed, “Hey Grandpa, I’m gonna go take a walk.”  
“Oh uh… ok, kiddo. We’ll just set up around here.” said Max.  
Garnet watched Ben walk off and adjusted her sunglasses, “Steven, go follow Ben.”  
“Are you sure?” he responded, “He looks kinda upset.”  
Garnet smirked, “I’m always sure.”  
Steven nodded and ran after Ben. Deep in the forest, Ben was sitting on a rock, looking up to space. Steven sheepishly walked up to him. “Hey, Ben? Are you ok?”  
Ben sighed, “I just...expected this to be just me and Grandpa Max, then Gwen showed up and then… you and your family showed up… no offense.”  
Steven sat down next to Ben, “Heh, none taken, the Gems can be a bit much sometimes, you should’ve seen what happened when Connie’s Parents met them, that was funny.”  
Ben chuckled and then looked up into the sky again, and saw a meteorite, “Hey, look at that, a shooting star!”  
Steven looked up and laughed, “Oooh, make a wish!”  
Ben laughed and then saw that the shooting star changed directions, and began flying toward the 2 boys, “Look out!” Ben yelled.  
They jumped out of the way as the Meteorite made an impact right next to them.  
The two boys looked into the crater, “Dude, check it out, a satellite!” said Ben.  
“I-I think we should get the Gems, they know more about space stuff!” said Steven.  
“Oh come on! Live a little man!” Ben slid down the crater and went up to the satellite, “See? It’s fine!”  
“Hehe, ok Ben, that’s enough!”  
Ben knelt down and the sphere opened, revealing what looked to be a watch, “What the heck?” said Ben jumping back, “A… watch?”  
“Ben! Get outta there, let’s get the Gems!”  
Ben ignored and brought his hand close to the watch, which jumped up and latched onto his wrist, “Ah! Get it off!”  
“A Corrupted Gem! Hurry let’s go!” said Steven, pulling Ben out of the crater.  
“No, wait… it’s some kinda tech thing?” said Ben, he tapped a bright green button on the side which made the dial on top pop out, Steven jumped back, he twisted the dial and saw silhouettes of what looked like some kind of monsters, Ben pushed the dial back down and felt himself changing. His whole body started feeling hot, for a moment it felt like burning but then it stopped, Ben looked at his hand and saw firey rocks, “I-I’M ON FIRE!!!”  
Steven ran back to the campsite after seeing Ben transform, “I’m getting help!” Steven met up with Greg and Max, who were trying to tech Amethyst how to make a fire, and she was more interested in the Marshmallows.  
“Garnet! Pearl! Ben’s on fire!” yelled Steven.  
“Wha-what!” Squawked Pearl, “How?”  
“That doesn’t matter!” yelled Max, “We need to help!”  
“My mom packed a fire extinguisher!” Said Connie, she ran into Greg’s RV and came out with a red fire extinguisher.  
“Connie, you should stay back. It’s very dangerous!” said Pearl.  
Calmly, Garnet said, “Let’s go before the forest burns down.” Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl ran into the woods after the bright-orange light in the distance.  
As the Gems ran farther into the woods, the fire grew hotter and brighter.   
Ben was standing there in his burning form accidentally shooting flames from his hands, “How do I make it stop?”  
Ben turned to see the Gems, weapons in hand, Pearl gasped, “A Pyronite? On Earth? How is that possible?”  
Amethyst cracked her whip, “What did you do with Max’s kid flame head?”  
Ben held up his hands, “No wait! It’s me, Ben!” he accidentally launched flames at the Gems who dodged and leaped toward Ben. Ben narrowly dodged Pearl’s graceful spear attacks but was thrown into a tree by Amethyst’s whip.  
“Wait!” yelled Steven, “That’s Ben!”  
“What?” asked Pearl, “That’s Impossible… unless…”  
Garnet helped him up, “Let’s get you back to the campsite.”  
The gems walked Ben back to the campsite, Ben held his arms close to his sides in order to make sure he doesn't shoot off any more fireballs.   
“Holy moly!” yelled Greg, “We went on vacation for less than an hour and you already catch a monster?”  
“Not exactly…” said Pearl, “Ben found… a device. That turned him into this.”  
“Yeah,” Ben groaned, “And now I’m a monster.”  
“Alien,” Max corrected, everyone turned to look at him, Max cleared his throat and said, “Well, look at him!”  
“Well, we can't just leave him like this! He’ll set fire to the whole RV!” Gwen complained.  
As they were talking Amethyst tried roasting a marshmallow over Ben’s head.  
Ben slumped down as Amethyst swallowed a burning marshmallow, “I can’t believe this,” he groaned, “I won’t be able to play soccer anymore, I’d probably melt my phone if I tried using it,” Ben’s eyes narrowed as he patted the areas where his pockets used to be, “Where did my phone go?”  
“Calm down Ben,” said Max, “I’m sure there's a reasonable explanation for-” Max was interrupted by a beeping sound.  
Ben looked down and noticed the circular badge on his chest, it had an hourglass shape in the middle and it was blinking red, “What’s this, what’s going on?” In a blinding flash of red, Ben reverted to his normal self, he felt his face and realized it wasn't made of rock anymore, “I-I’m back!”  
Pearl lit up, “The Omni-... I mean, that device must require recharging, so it reverted you back!”  
Ben tried prying the watch off his hand, “This thing’s still stuck though!”  
“Well until we know how to deal with it, I suggest not messing with that watch anymore. For your own safety,” said Max.  
Ben groaned, “Fine.”  
“Hey Greg, how about you and the Gems help me grab some firewood, let the kids get to know each other a bit,” said Max.  
“Oh, sure but uh, are you sure it’ll be ok?” said Greg.  
Max smiled, “It’ll be fine Greg, they’re responsible.”  
As soon as Greg, Max and the Gems were out of sight, Ben pressed the button on the side of his watch, and the dial popped up again.  
“Ben, what are you doing?” Gwen nagged.  
“I wanna know how it works!” Ben responds.  
“Your grandpa said not to use it!” said Connie.  
Ben brushed her off, “If this thing is gonna be attached to me, I wanna see how it works,” he turned the dial and a different silhouette appeared, a quadruped creature, a lanky and round humanoid, a giant bug, a big and angular humanoid, and a lot more, “Looks like I can turn into all 10 of these aliens…”  
“Ben. No.” said Gwen.  
Ben gave a smug grin and smacked his watch, “Ben yes!”  
Ben’s skin turned a bright green and 4 tentacle-like eyes formed from the sides of his head, bug-like wings burst from his back and finally, his body stretched out and gained 6 legs.   
The other 3 immediately gagged, “Augh, what is that smell?” said Gwen.  
Ben’s prehensile eyes looked around himself, “Uhh, me I think.”  
Connie held her nose, “Please never use this one again.”  
Ben began flapping his wings and he was lifted into the air, “This is so cool you guys!” Suddenly, something caught Ben’s eye, he looked into the charred forest and saw red lights peeking out of the trees, “What the…” Before he could finish, something rammed into Ben, the force from the attack tosses Ben to the ground. Ben caught a glimpse at his attacker, a small, red robotic drone, with small, sharp arms, some having sharp blades and some having blasters. The drone staring at Ben charged up its blaster, Ben flinched and closed his eyes, he heard the blast go off but felt nothing. When he opened his eyes he saw Steven standing in front of him, with a bright Pink Shield attached to his arm, “How did…” Ben questioned.  
“Hehe, it’s a long story,” Steven chuckled.  
“Oh uh… ok,” Ben said, trying to Process everything.  
The Drone began firing more shots and the duo, they heard Connie yell, “I got it!” Connie lept in, slicing the Drone in half with a pink sword.  
A rumbling sound came from the forest, and a swarm of drones flew out, a few began firing toward Ben and Steven, Steven tried blocking them but his shield collapsed, Ben flew away from them, and noticed that all the drones were after him, “Ok, the last guy had a cool power, lets see what this one can do!” Ben focused on a drone, and fired acidic goop from his eyes, which made the drone sputter out, crashing into another drone, blowing them up, Ben kept firing gunk from his eyes at the robotic attackers, but Ben heard the beeping noise again, “Aww man!” he said, just before he timed out and began falling, he managed to land in a bush, which broke his fall but still hurt a lot.  
The Drones surrounded Ben, and blocked him off from Steven and the others, Ben just held his arms up in an attempt to protect himself, and heard a powerful crack ring through the forest, as a few drones fell, Ben looked up and saw Amethyst, who was playfully swinging her whip around, “Heya Benny,” she chuckled.  
Pearl stabbed 2 drones through her spear, shook them off and then fired blasts at a few others.  
Garnet smashed a large group of drones, punching rapidly.  
Eventually, the drones were left as a pile of scrap metal.  
“What on earth happened here!” yelled Pearl, “Where did these come from?”  
“I-I don't know,” said Ben, “I just tried another Alien thing and… these attacked me!”  
Garnet crossed her arms, “Someone must be sending them here.”  
“They also only went for me, they only attacked Steven when he tried protecting me with his… magic shield.”  
Gwen folded her arms,” This was supposed to be a relaxing camping trip, but now there's aliens and robots and… magic women!”  
Grandpa Max frowned, “I’m sorry Gwen, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”  
Gwen groaned, “Whatever, I’m calling it a night,” she slumped down into her tent and pulled out her phone.  
“Whoever sent these must have more,” said Pearl, “These look mass-produced,” she poked through the rubble.  
Amethyst groaned, “Then let's go out and punch stuff! I’ve been bored as heck since we got in that bigger van!”  
“It’s an RV…” Greg groaned.  
Garnet crossed her arms, “We’ll stay here and wait. If these robots are after us, or… Ben, then they will come to us,” She summoned her gauntlets, “And we have plenty of firepowers to spare!”  
Everyone (except Gwen) Stayed around the fire, Max and Greg were chatting, but Ben just stared at the fire, letting the noise drown everyone out.  
Steven put a hand on Ben’s shoulder, “You ok?”  
“I just got superpowers and then I immediately get targeted by alien robots, no I’m not ok,” said Ben.  
Steven frowned, “You know, I was happy when I first figured my powers out.”  
“Oh yeah?” said Ben, “Well I doubt you were almost killed when you did.”  
“No, it was right before.”  
“Oh.”  
Steven laughed, “My friend tried drowning me, I healed her Gem and then she flew off, haven’t seen her since.”  
“Ah jeez, sorry man,” said Ben, trying his hardest to sound genuine.  
“It’s fine Ben,” said Steven smiling, “She wanted to go back to her world.”  
Ben lifted an eyebrow, “So the Gems are aliens too?”  
Steven thought for a minute, “Maybe? It’s weird.”  
Ben chuckled, “Clearly.”  
Just as everyone was getting settled, a rumbling came from the distance, followed by the panicked shrieks of many tourists.  
“That’s our cue!” Said Garnet, “Gems, weapons!”  
The Gems summoned their weapons and rushed off toward the screaming civilians at lightning speed.  
“We need to help them!” said Gwen.  
“Kids, get in the Rustbucket!” yelled Max.  
Ben, Gwen, Connie, and Steven ran into the RV and it drove off after the Gems.   
Greg looked around and the messy campsite and said, “Well, it looks like I’ll be the one cleaning all this up.”  
The Gems were fighting a giant robot, it was long with 2 big red eyes, its arms had blade-like fingers and 3 blade-like legs. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all lept up to fight the monstrous robot, but if fired lasers at the 3 and they were knocked to the ground.   
Connie grabbed her sword, “Let’s go, Steven!”  
Steven nodded and the two ran toward the towering machine, Connie drove her sword into one of the robot’s legs, she pulled the blade from the robot and looked up… and saw that the robot was looking down at them, it’s lifeless eyes glowed, making a menacing whirring noise. A bright red beam came from the Robot’s eyes. Steven created a giant shield above the two but it broke as soon as the monster stopped firing. Steven collapsed and Connie tried waking him but the monster began revving it’s laser again, Ben rushed toward them and smacked his watch again and turned into a bluish-green, bulky humanoid made of crystals. He picked up the two and got them to a safe place.   
Steven woke up and squinted at the thing that saved him, “Ben?” he said.  
“Yeah,” said Ben, in a now deep voice, “I’m gonna go try beating that thing up… wish me luck!”  
Ben ran off, every time his joints moved it made a crystal chime sound. He aimed his hands and the machine and said, “Please do something!” his hands became sharp and rigid and fired crystals at the robot, they lodged into the robot, it fired its laser at Ben, he crossed his arms in front of his face and the lasers reflected in many directions, Ben looked around and his eyes lit up. He ran off and jumped on a car and stared at the monster right in the eyes.  
“Hey ugly!” Ben yelled, he pointed at his chest and said, “Hit me with your best shot!”  
The robot whirred and fired a blast at Ben, he formed his hands into a bowl-like shape, they shot in all directions, Ben narrowed the bowl-shape, concentrating the beam back at the robot, blowing its head up.  
Ben caught his breath, and looked around at the shocked civilians, Steven ran up and said, “Way to go B-uhhh, Diamond-headed guy!”  
Everyone began clapping, but Ben heard the beeping from his watch, he ran off until no one saw him, and he timed out.  
The Gems recovered and saw that the Robot had collapsed and smoke was pouring from where its head was.  
“Did we do that?” Asked Amethyst groggily.  
“Nope!” said Ben walking up to them, “I did!”  
“What!?” asked Pearl, “You took that whole thing down?”  
“I saw him!” said Steven.  
“He was AWESOME!” said Connie.  
Garnet smiled, “Good job Ben, without you that thing would have hurt so many people.”  
Ben blushed, “aw come on, it wasn’t that great.”  
Grandpa Max put a hand on Ben’s shoulder, “Looks like that watch is gonna do a lot of good this summer.”  
Ben looked down at his wrist, he smiled, “Yeah… I think it is.”


	2. Giant Woman

“And, checkmate!” said Amethyst, crossing her arms proudly.  
Pearl squinted, “You just moved your pawn.”  
“Yeah, so?”   
“T-that, no,” said Pearl, “that’s not how you play.”  
“That’s how I play!”  
Pearl furrowed her brow, “Amethyst, you cant just make up your own rules! There’s a ruleset for games like this for a reason!”  
“Nye nye nye” mocked Amethyst, “You’re no fun, this is why we don’t form Opal anymore!”  
“Opal?” asked Ben, who was watching the whole game go down.  
Steven, who was sitting next to Ben, explained, “Opal’s a fusion, the Gems told me about fusions but I’ve never seen them,” he slumped down in his seat.  
Pearl exhaled, “You don’t see us fuse because we only fuse for life or death situations.”  
Ben rubbed his forehead, “Fusion? What?”  
Amethyst laughed, “Basically it’s when 2 gems get mashed up into one,” she took 2 Chess pieces and slammed them together, breaking both.  
Pearl groaned, she grabbed a salt shaker and hook some on the table. She moved her hands over it and the grains formed 2 humanoid figures, vaguely resembling Amethyst and Pearl, “Fusion is when 2 gem’s physical forms combine into one, taking attributes of both Gems and making a whole new being!”  
The Salt models of Amethyst and Pearl danced and became a taller, 4 armed gem.  
Amethyst jumped up on the table, smashing the salt model, “Yeah, like Opal is an ultra-powerful, stone-cold Betty— That part's me. And she's like, kinda tall... That part's Pearl.”  
Pearl groaned, “The point is, we need to be synchronized and at peace with each other. Which is why we never become Opal.”  
Ben was starstruck, “That sounds so cool! I wanna see Opal!”  
“Me too,” said Steven, crossing his arms.  
“I’m sure Opal would love to see you too,” said Pearl, “Maybe when the time is right, you can meet her.”  
Just then, a beam of light shot into Greg’s RV, “Garnet’s back!” Yelled Steven, running into the RV, “So, did you get me anything?” Garnet handed him a rock, “Woah, a rock! Thanks, Garnet!”  
“Was your mission successful?” asked Pearl.  
“I’ve located the Geode Beetles of Heaven and Earth, I think we should split up to find them,” Garnet explained.  
“Good, because I wanna be with not Pearl,” said Amethyst.  
Pearl scoffed, “Well I don’t want to go with grammatically incorrect people anyway.”  
Steven gnawed on his rock, “Is her talking about me?”  
Ben chuckled.  
“I actually want you four to go find them.”  
“Wh-what!?” Squawked Pearl.  
“No fair!” yelled Amethyst.  
Ben gasped, “I get to go on one of your magic missions? AWESOME!”  
“Garnet, why do I have to take Amethyst with me?” Pearl complained.  
“The earth beetle is surrounded by hot lava, and I’m the only one here who can swim in lava,” she summoned goggles that were identically shaped to her sunglasses, “The Heaven Beetle is on the top of the Sky Spire, it’s safer.”  
“You mean boring-er,” whined Amethyst.  
“You mean more boring,” corrected Pearl.  
“So you agree.”  
Pearl growls, “Steven, Ben, Amethyst, let’s go get this over with.”  
“Steven,” said Garnet, getting his attention, “be sure to keep the harmony.”  
“No problem!” said Steven, “Today’s gonna be all about harmony!”  
As they stepped on the Warp Pad, Ben raised an eyebrow, “Can’t Heatblast swim in lava?” they teleported off.  
“So this is where the Heaven Beetle lives?” asked Steven.  
“Apparently…” said Pearl.  
Amethyst groaned, “We have to get all the way up there?”  
Ben smirked, “No problem! I can just fly up there with Stinkfly!” He smacked his watch and soared up to the top of the Spire… only to fly back down and say, “I have no clue what I’m looking for.”  
“Walking it is!” said Steven.   
They began their hike up to the top of the Spire, Ben was still curious about fusions, “So is it like, one of you controls the left arm and the other controls the right?”  
“Do you turn into a giant giant woman or just a normal-sized giant woman?” asked Steven. He was about to ask another question when they were stopped by a large staircase.  
Ben smirked, “Man, those sure are a lot of stairs, and my watch thing is still recharging… if only Opal was here to carry us up!”   
“No,” said Amethyst and Pearl in Unison.  
Steven and Ben sighed and trekked up the stairs.  
While they were walking up the stairs, Steven pulled his ukelele off his back, “You brought that?” asked Ben.  
“Of course!” said Steven, plucking a few strings, “What’s an adventure without adventure music?” he began playing a tune on it, and began singing, “All I wanna do, is see you to, a giant woman, a giant woman! All I wanna be is someone who gets to see, a giant woman!” they made it to the top of the stairs and he continued, “Oh, I know it’ll be great and I just can’t wait to see the person you are together! If you give it a chance you can do a huge dance because you are, a giant woman!” They hopped across some small, floating islands, “You might even like being together and if you don’t it won’t be forever. But if it were me, I’d really wanna be a giant woman, a giant woman… All I wanna do is see you turn into… a giant woman…”   
“Wow... “ said Ben, “You’re a really good singer!”  
“Thanks!” said Steven, “I learned from my dad, he used to make music!”  
Ben sighed, “Why do you have to be so cool?”  
Steven gasped, “I’m cool!?”  
“Heck yeah dude!” said Ben.  
The group was met with a large gap, with a few sparse floating islands, “We need to get across there, then we should be able to find the Heaven Beetle.”  
“Pssh, This will be easy!” said Amethyst, she picked up Steven and tossed him like a football, having him land on one of these islands he stumbled a bit and held his hands in the hair, cheering.  
“AMETHYST!” yelled Pearl, “Steven could’ve been hurt!”  
“Oh come on, he’s fine, see?”  
The island crumbled and Steven fell, Amethyst jumped down and grabbed Steven, she unleashed her whip at Pearl, who caught it and yanked Steven and Amethyst up.  
“That was… amazing!” said Steven, “Why don’t you work together like that all the time?”  
Amethyst and Pearl turned away from each other, scoffing.  
Steven, Ben, Amethyst, and Pearl finally made it up to the top of the Spire, at the top was a miniature temple, “Perfect! It’s exactly where Garnet said it would be! Meaning the Heaven Beetle is inside!”  
Steven looked through a window in the small temple, “Oh cute! It’s a little beetle bedroom! With little beetle bongos and a beetle baby book!”  
“But no Heaven Beetle!” said Ben, now transformed into Greymatter, he walked around the small temple but it was completely empty.  
“That can’t be!” said Pearl, “T-the beetle should be here! Why would it leave!?”  
“Oh I know,” said Amethyst, “Maybe freak out some more, that will be SO helpful!”  
Pearl growled, “I am not a fan of your attitude!”  
“Hey! It’s not my fault the dumb Beetle isn’t there! Why do you need to make things worse by squawking at me!?”  
“I’m not squawking! THIS is squawking!” Pearl began squawking like a bird.  
“You two stop it!” yelled Steven, “Nothing will get solved like this!”  
Just then, a swarm of small, monstrous birds emerged from a small lake and dashed toward the group, Pearl summoned her spear and threw it at the swarm of birds, they all combined and became a giant, and it swallowed the spear.  
Steven picked up Greymatter and ran. The bird creature dove for the boys, Steven threw Ben away to save him just as he timed out, and Steven was swallowed whole and the bird flew away.  
“Unbelievable! You let it get away!” yelled Pearl.  
“I let it get away? You were the one too busy squawking!” retorted Amethyst.  
“Would you two get over it!?” Yelled Ben, “Steven is in trouble!”  
“What!?” yelled Amethyst, “Where is he?”  
Ben smacked his forehead, “In the BIRD!”  
“Well can’t you transform into something?” Pearl asked.  
“The watch is out of power! You need to do something!”  
Pearl and Amethyst shared a look at each other and nodded.  
Steven opened his eyes, he was inside the bird monster. He looked around and saw many piles of rubble and broken rocks, he shivered, “Okay, pull it together Steven. You’ve been through worse… Maybe…” just then the bird changed direction, causing everything inside to get thrown to the side, Steven pushed some off of him, and noticed one was shiny, and moving. Steven picked it up, “The Heaven Beetle! I found it!... Now I need to find a way out of here…” Suddenly, a long arm punched through the bird and started feeling around, “Ah! Stay away! I’m too cute to die!”   
Another Arm came through and grabbed Steven, pulling him through. It was a giant 4 armed woman with a long flowing ponytail and a green outfit, she set Steven down and said, “Stay low.” she summons a whip and a spear and combines them into a Bow, she pulled it and an arrow appeared, she fired it at the Bird monster and it split up into 100 smaller ones.   
Opal pulled back her bow again and the arrow split up and poofed some of the birds, making small gemstones land on the ground.   
Another bird swooped around and was about to run through Opal, “Look out!” yelled Steven.  
“I got it! yelled Ben, he smacked his watch and became a blue, cat-like humanoid alien, he rushed to opal and caught the bird before it got to her, he used his claws to poof it and Opal took out the last few and put the gemstones in bubbles.  
Steven had stars in his eyes, Opal put away her bow and looked at him, “Do you… know who I am? He asked.  
Opal giggled, and sang, “All I wanna do is see you turn into…”  
Steven gasped, “A giant woman!”  
The group went back to the warp pad, and teleported back to Greg’s RV, “Did you get the Heaven Beetle?” Garnet asked Opal.  
Opal’s eyes widened, “I… forgot!” she split up into Amethyst and Pearl.  
“I can’t believe we forgot about the Beetle!” said Amethyst.  
“Don’t worry!” said Steven, he presented a small golden beetle to Garnet.  
She took the beetle and put it in a terrarium with another similar beetle, but it had a black color scheme, “Good job keeping your teammates in check Steven”   
“Hey!” said Ben, “I was in check! I only came close to dying once!”  
Garnet gave a thumbs up, and turned to Steven, “You helped your teammates keep harmony and fuse, you’ll be good at fusing one day!”  
“Hehe! Yeah…” said Steven, “...WAIT, I CAN DO THAT?”


	3. The Doctor is In(sane)

“What do you mean you won’t fund my research!?” Cried an angry old man.  
“I’m sorry Mr. Animo-” started the young businessman.  
“That’s Doctor Animo! Doctor! I did not spend 7 years of my life earning my doctorate to be called ‘Mr. Animo’” yelled the doctor.  
“Well, Dr. Animo, your work is highly inhumane and, to put it simply, wrong. Splicing animal DNA, creating new creatures. It’s horrific!”  
“Perhaps you and your colleagues’ feeble minds can’t handle my genius!”  
The younger man scoffed, “Well sir, we’ll just take our feeble minds and fund other projects!”  
“No, wait I-”  
“Good day sir!” he slams Animo’s apartment door.  
Animo droops down, then angrily throws everything off his desk, a small reptilian creature flies and lands on his shoulder, Animo pets it and it makes a chirping noise.  
“I just don’t understand” Animo moped, “No one on this entire planet understands my genius. If only I could show them something like you without getting arrested… like the last time”  
The reptile grimaces  
“Don’t worry, my pet. I won’t let you be taken away like your brothers. You are the best of them after all” Animo gets up and puts on his coat, his lizard friend scurrying under to hide, and they walk out.  
Meanwhile, the 2 families were taking a stop at a local zoo, admiring the wide variety of wildlife, all except Ben who was bored out of his mind.  
Pearl tapped Steven’s shoulder and pointed toward some pandas, “Steven look! Aren’t those adorable!”  
Steven looked with stars in his eyes, “Oh my gosh! They’re so cute! Right Ben?"  
Ben looked and shrugged, "I guess? I dunno I guess I'm just too old for this kinda stuff."  
Steven gasped dramatically, “Too old? Are you crazy? you’re never too old to enjoy things like the zoo,” he looked around, and pointed at a mysterious old man in a hood, “Like that guy, he gets it!”  
Dr. Animo turned and faced Steven, looked confused and continued walking.  
“Or he’s lost” joked Amethyst.  
The doctor continued walking but stopped himself, “Something was off with them…” he turned around and analyzed them further, “Their skin and hair tones, they’re not natural yet, they don't appear to be makeup or dye, and those gemstones embedded in their skin… They aren’t… human,” he watched as they moved onto the other exhibit, Steven’s Shirt was caught on a part of the fence and his shirt was slightly lifted, revealing his mother’s Gemstone within his stomach.   
Animo gasped, “He’s- he’s-he’s a hybrid! A combination of human and alien DNA! I must research him! But how? His caretakers would never allow me to take him. I must form a plan.”  
Animo continued to follow the families around, making sure to stay out of their sight. He eventually followed the back to the parking lot.  
Max patted his pockets, “Aw darn, where are my keys? Pearl, I gave them to you right?”  
Pearl folded her arms, “You actually gave them to Amethyst.”  
Amethyst’s eyes widened, “Woops.”  
“You lost them!?” Max scolded.  
“Hey man, you’ve known me for years. You know not to trust me with… anything.”  
Max groaned loudly, “Now what?”  
“I got you covered grandpa!” said Ben, he slapped his watch and turned into Wildmutt, the large orange beast began loudly sniffing around, he barked and ran off in the direction of the keys.  
“Incredible…” said Animo, scribbling down notes, “I’ll have to abduct both of the children then.” He laughed to himself and turned to his pet, “To an outside observer I must sound like I’m insane.”  
His pet lizard blinked and stuck out its tongue.  
“You always know exactly what to say.”  
Wildmutt returned with the keys and dropped them into Max’s hands, covered in slobber.  
“Thanks… Ben,” he said, “Let's hit the road!”  
Max and Greg start their RVs and get going, “Go my pet!” said Animo. The lizard flew off and landed on the Rustbucket. Animo pulled out his phone, which was tracking the amalgam creature, “I’ll wait for them to make a stop, and I’ll make my move!”  
Pearl excitedly clapped her hands together, “Oh Steven that was so fun! Aren’t Earth’s creatures so wonderful?”  
Steven smiled, “Yeah! There were so many too!”  
“Oh Steven, this was the kind of thing your mother fought for, if it wasn't for her those creatures wouldn’t have a planet to stay on!”  
“Wow, mom must’ve been great!”  
“Oh, she was wonderful” said Pearl, with a sparkle in her eye.  
“Eugh,” groaned Amethyst, “On another one of your nerd rants?” she asked.  
Pearl blushed, “Amethyst!” she rubbed her forehead, “Why must you ruin this touching moment?”  
“It was funny” said Amethyst, chuckling.  
Garnet picked up Steven, “Come on Steven, time to go to bed.”  
“Aww, ok.” said Steven, and Garnet laid him on his bed.  
Animo snuck up to Greg’s RV first, his Reptile friend landed on Animo’s arm, “Now my pet, now we must pick the lock of the-” Animo tugged at the door and it opened easily, “Well then…”  
Animo snuck in and quickly grabbed Steven, who was snoring loudly, he put Steven in his car and moved on to the Rustbucket, he was faced with a more complicated lock system, “Interesting, I haven’t seen a lock system before,” he turned to his pet, “You know what to do.”  
The creature jumped off his arm and latched onto the door and spit acid on the lock. Animo pulled it open and snuck over to where Ben was sleeping, Animo tried picking him up to no avail, not to mention, Ben was a much lighter sleeper, then Ben woke up.  
“Wh-huh… HEY!” Ben yelled, “Who are you?”  
Without hesitation, Animo ran out of the RV and jumped into his car, Ben ran after him as animo drove off, “I got a bad feeling about that guy,” said Ben, “Looks like it’s hero time!” he smacked his watch and transformed into Fasttrack, and ran after the car.  
“Great!” said Animo, “Now the boy will call the authorities, and…” Animo looked out the window and saw a cat-like creature running right next to his car, “What on Earth?”  
Ben looked in and saw Steven sleeping in the back of the car, “You creep! You took Steven!? Oh, you’re going down-” Ben was cut off by running into a sign.  
Animo backed his car up, and saw Ben transform back to human, “Huh, I can’t believe my luck!”  
He took Ben into his car and drove to his lab.  
Ben groaned and looked around, he felt a pain in his head and tried to put his had to his forehead but was stopped by the straps around his arms. He struggled to break free but to no avail. Ben looked at his surroundings and noticed Steven snoring next to him.  
“Steven?” whispered Ben, “Steven!” he hissed.  
Steven continued snoring.  
“STEVEN!” Ben yelled.  
“Wuh?” said Steven, jolting awake.  
“We were kidnapped!” Ben explained.  
“Kidnapped!? Oh no! What are we gonna do?”  
“Worry not my test subjects, I’ll return you once I’m done!” said Dr. Animo.  
“AAH! CREEPY SCIENTIST!” yelled Steven, “IT'S JUST LIKE THAT MOVIE PEARL WON’T LET ME WATCH!”  
“Why’d you take us!?” yelled Ben.  
“For your unique abilities, of course!” explained Animo, “I witnessed you transform at the Zoo, and you have a pink gemstone in your stomach!”  
Ben cringed, “What are you gonna do to us?”  
Animo sneered, “Experiments!”  
In Greg’s RV, pearl emerged from her door, “Steven! Wake up!”  
Pearl went over to Steven’s bunk bed and poked it, only for her to not feel anything, she moved his blanket but Steven was nowhere to be found, “Steven!?” she whipped her head around and couldn’t find him, “STEVEN!?”  
Greg woke up, “Huh? What’s wrong, Pearl?”  
“STEVEN’S MISSING!!!” she yelled.  
Garnet and Amethyst emerged from their rooms, hearing the commotion.  
Max also burst through the door of Greg’s RV, “Ben’s gone!”  
Greg started hyperventilating, “Where, where could they be!?”  
“Look!” said Connie, pointing out the window, “There’s tire tracks!”  
Pearl hopped out and examined them,”Judging by how deep they are, the vehicle must be around 3,000 pounds, meaning it's relatively old for Earth’s standards…” As she was talking, a hologram of a car was projected from her Gem, “And judging by the direction of the tracks, they must have gone north!”  
“There’s an apartment complex just north of here!” said Max.  
“What are we waiting for then?” asked Gwen, “Let’s go!”  
Animo began interrogating his 2 test subjects, “What type of Gemstone is this anyways?” he asked Steven.  
“Well…” Steven began, “My mom was a Rose Quartz, she gave up her physical form to make me, and her Gemstone is now in me.”  
“Strange.” said Animo, “I’ve never seen a rose quartz that looks like this…”  
“Steven! Don’t answer the crazy man’s questions!” Yelled Ben.  
“He wanted to know!”  
Animo turned to Ben, “And you, loud one, how does your device work?”  
“I don’t know!” Ben shot back, “I got it like, a week or two ago, I just hit the dial and I transform.”  
Animo examined the machine closely, “And how many creatures can you become?”  
“Like, 10?”  
Animo attached a machine to Ben’s Watch, it started gathering data, “I see… it arranges it’s DNA samples in sets of 10.” he looked through more of the Data being collected on his computer screen, “There’s thousands, no MILLIONS of DNA samples, all at your fingertips. Just imagining what I could do with such power… all those creatures… never before seen by human eyes… I must have this power.”  
“Sorry creepo, this thing doesn't come off.”  
Animo ignored him, “And with the power in the other one’s Gemstone I could become… I could become a GOD!”  
Ben and Steven looked at each other, “What are we gonna do?” asked Steven.  
Before Ben could speak, Animo put another device onto Ben’s watch, it collected random DNA from it, making a loud beep and chirp. He moved onto Steven, he attached the device to Steven’s Gem, it took DNA from that as well. The collection tank was swirling with strange pink and green liquid. Animo took the liquid and put it into a syringe. He put it toward his arm.  
“Wait!” yelled Ben.  
“The unlimited power of the cosmos… they’re ALL MINE!” he jabbed the syringe into his arm, he began to mutate and contort into different alien forms, some Ben didn’t even recognize as being his own. Animo’s form began to become more consistent, he became a large-crablike being with a hard shell and pincers for arms, on top of that, a black version of Steven’s Gemstone was implanted in the creature’s abdominal area.  
“...Gross,” said Ben.  
Animo look at his form, he began cackling, the sound echoed through Ben and Steven’s brain, “Such power, my intellect has increased tenfold! And… I can do THIS,” The shell covering the top of his head cracked open, revealing a pulsating brain.  
“Oh that’s super gross,” said Ben.  
“HOLD YOUR TONGUE, LOWER LIFE FORM!” he shot black lightning from his brain, Ben was shocked but was freed from the table he was strapped to, without a second thought, Ben slapped the Omnitrix, he grew to almost double his size, grew scales all over his body and sprouted a long tail, “HUMUNGOUSAUR!” he yelled. Ben freed Steven and charged at the mad doctor.  
Humungousaur unleashed a powerful punch at the Mutated Dr. Animo, but was blocked by a dark shield, “Try much as you want, inferior, you will never defeat my brilliance!”  
“JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!” he punched Animo harder, breaking his shield and knocking him backwards.  
“You’ll pay for that brat!” Animo fired lightning at Ben, making his watch beep and he turned back to human.  
“Aw, man,” said Ben.  
Animo fired more powerful lightning at Ben, Steven caught him in a bubble, but they were knocked through the wall of his apartment, they fell down 3 stories.  
The boys hit the ground and Steven’s bubble popped, “We gotta do something!” said Steven.  
“Not till my watch recharges! He must’ve short circuited it or something!” Ben cried.  
“My powers still work!” said Steven, “You gotta go find the Gems, maybe they can help!”  
“I’m not leaving you here to fight this psycho!” Ben argued.  
“Don't worry about me!”  
Ben nodded and ran away.  
Animo descended from his destroyed apartment, he landed on the pavement with great force, cracking beneath his feet, “You’re fighting me alone? A mistake like this could only be made by a being of such low intellect as yourself.”  
“I don't wanna fight, lets just talk!”  
“Talk? You think I’d stoop your level?”  
“You already did!” Steven jokes, “You flew down 3 stories!”  
Animo scowled, “I grow tired of this.”  
“Wait! What do you plan on doing after you get rid of us!”  
“Why, I would get revenge on those who wronged me, I’d combine the DNA of everyone on Earth with that of an Alien! This planet will be my paradise!”  
Steven let out a nervous chuckle, “Ok. Uhh we could also not do that!”  
“As I said before,” Animo lifted himself off the ground, “I grow tired of this!” Animo let out a frequency from his brain, causing Steven to keel over in pain… and then the sound of thunderous footsteps interrupted him.  
A giant, six armed, colorful Gem ran up to Animo’s apartment building, Ben, Gwen and Connie were on her shoulders.  
“SAY HELLO TO ALEXANDRITE!” Ben yelled.  
Steven had stars in his eyes, “G-g-g...GIANT WOMAN!” he cheered.  
Animo stared in shock, “H-ho-how is this possible!?”  
Alexandrite blew fire from her mouth at Animo. He, along with the parking lot, were scorched.   
Animo coughed and looked up at his attacker, and was met with a powerful punch, that shook the ground. Alexandrite unfused, Animo’s form began to unmutate, slightly. He retained some crablike features and the black Gemstone in his stomach.  
“Y, you’ll pay… ughn” Animo passed out in the crater made by Alexandrite’s attack.   
“THAT WAS AWESOME!” Said Ben.  
“I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD ALL FUSE!” Said Steven.  
“How does Alexandrite breathe fire?” Asked Gwen.  
“Please, please,” said Pearl, “We can answer your questions at the RV”  
“Right now… we need to leave before the police show up,” Said Garnet.  
“WOOHOO! RUNNING FROM THE COPS!” Amethyst cheered.  
“We are not running from the police ame-” Pearl is interrupted by the sound of police sirens, “Actually yes we are, come on kids!”  
Amethyst laughed as they began to run off, “Pearl! I didn’t know you were such a rebel!”  
“Don’t act so surprised,” said Pearl.


	4. Enchanted

“Hey, Connie?” Asked Gwen.  
“Yeah?” replied Connie, polishing her sword.  
“Do you ever feel like... I dunno, useless? Like you can’t contribute?”  
Connie thought for a moment, “I mean, I think I used to, Steven was able to fight these crazy Gem monsters all the time and I was stuck watching from the sidelines. That is until Pearl taught me how to be a swordfighter, now I can fight alongside the Cyrstal Gems!”  
Gwen slumped down, “I could never do something like that, I mean I’m good at Karate, I’ve been taking it since I was 10… and also 7 years of Cotillion I’ll never get back.”  
“Cotillion?”   
“It’s like, ballroom dancing.”  
“Oh, yikes.”  
“Yeah, I doubt self-defense combat and some lame dancing would help at all.”  
“Don't say that! You can do anything if you put your mind to it you can be strong!”  
“...I guess.”  
“Gwen! Connie!” Called Pearl, “Come with me, I have something exciting to show you two!”  
Gwen and Connie stepped out of the RV, Pearl led them to a small convention center, filled with magical items being sold and presented.  
“What… is all this?” Asked Gwen.  
Peal smiled, “Well, this is the annual Convention of Magical Items! I’ve wanted to go for years but I never got the chance, I’ve always been curious about the various magical items that earth has to offer.  
“Wait so, Magic is real?” asked Gwen.  
“Well, of course! Why Gems are all derived from a form of magic!”  
“That’s… really cool.”  
The group walks into the convention center and were met with people of all ages bustling around, trading, buying, and selling potentially magical artifacts, some were doing basic card tricks or reading palms, altogether pretty basic stuff.  
“Ok you two, we’ll meet at the entrance in an hour, have fun!” Pearl walked off and was engrossed by someone doing card tricks.  
Connie turned to Gwen, “So, what do you wanna look at first?”  
Before Gwen could respond, she got a strange spark in her mind, she looked around, and felt something… calling out to her, “This way,” she leads Connie to a small, unassuming table in the far corner of the convention center. Gwen looked around on the table and saw a small grey stone with purple markings on it, “That one!” she dug into her pockets and pulled out a wallet, “How much for this?” she asked the vendor.  
He looked at the stone then up to her, “Three-fifty.”  
She threw him a five-dollar bill and immediately picked up the stone, just as she did, Gwen felt power surge through her body, “Oh my god…”  
Connie tapped her shoulder, “Gwen, are you ok?”  
“I-I think so? Just this thing kinda… called out to me, I don't know how to explain-” Gwen was interrupted by Connie gasping.  
“Gwen your eyes!”  
“What’s wrong!?”  
“They’re… purple!”  
“W-what!?” Gwen pulled out her phone and opened the camera app, she looked in awe, “No way…”  
“Well, it’s more of a magenta,” said Connie.  
“Connie I don’t care what shade they are, we… we should go get Pearl.”  
“Yeah, good idea.”  
They ran off after Pearl… but a hooded girl with pure white hair followed after them, “I can’t believe it, she found one of the charms of Bezel!”  
“Pearl!” yelled Gwen and Connie.  
Pearl had bags full of magical goodies she bought, “Yeas?- Oh my, Gwen what happened to your eyes?”  
“I-I dunno, it happened when I picked up this,” she showed Pearl the charm.  
Pearl gasped, “You have… a Charm of Bezel!?”  
“What’s that?” Gwen asked.  
Pearl sighed, , her Gem lit up and showed a hologram of 6 identical stones, “The charms of Bezel harness different forms of Magic, such as the Charm of Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Electrokinesis, Luck, and Resurrection, what you have Gwen is the Keystone of Bezel, which can bond the powers of the other charms… which may be the cause of your eye color changing. They keystone must have unlocked some dormant magical abilities within you.”  
“Wait, so you’re telling me that I’m magic?” asked Gwen.  
“Theoretically, yes.”  
“So cool,” said Gwen.  
“Oh trust me,” a voice from behind said, “It gets much cooler!” she takes off her hood and rolls up her sleeve, revealing the other 5 charms of Bezel, along with 2 stones on a necklace and a Grimoire in her hand, “now hand over the keystone before I burn you are your mortal friends to a crisp.”  
“Yeah right,” said Gwen, “Who do you think you are?”  
The girl’s hands ignited with purple flames, “You can call me Charmcaster.”  
By then, people were running out of the building seeing the display of power. Pearl summoned her spear and pulled Connie’s sword from her Gem and handed it to her.  
Connie unsheathed her sword and pointed it toward Charmcaster, “Remember your training!” said Pearl.  
“Stance wide, body lowered,” Connie replied.  
“Balance is the key!” Pearl sang.  
Gwen pocketed her Charm and got into a battle stance, Charmcaster laughed, “This will be so easy.”  
Connie and Pearl charged at Charmcaster, who just teleported past them and straight to Gwen, she pushed her onto the ground and attacked, “Give it up, you have nothing over the ruler of Legerdomain!”  
Gwen grabbed Charmcaster’s necklace and charms and ripped them off of her while pushing her off, the magical artifacts were flung across the convention center in all directions, “How DARE you!” she yelled.  
“Connie! Pearl! Grab as many as you can! Then she won’t have power!” yelled Gwen.  
“That’s what you think!” she read a spell from her Grimoire and shot magic bursts at Gwen, knocking her back, and right next to one of the charms, she grabbed it and aimed it at Charmcaster.  
“C’mon! Do something!” she said.  
Charmcaster laughed, “That’s the charm of luck, it has no offensive power!”  
Gwen lit up, “So it makes me lucky eh?” she ran up to Charmcaster, who stepped back and prepared to cast another spell, but slipped on a stray drink cup, she dropped her spellbook and it slid right to Gwen, “Oh wow, it does!”  
“Give that back!”  
“Not happening!” Gwen flipped the book open and tried reading a spell… only to find it wasn’t in any language she recognized, “uhhh…”  
Charmcaster began levitating, “Grimoires are granted to those who have powerful magical potential, which you obviously do not.”  
“Well, I still have your book! So you cant do anything!”  
“Wrong, I memorized most of the important ones!” Here eyes and hands glowed brightly, “MAGNA PRAEMIUM!” a large purple explosion enveloped the convention center.  
Meanwhile outside, Greg, Max, Ben, Steven, and Amethyst were walking out of a nearby restaurant, Amethyst shoving 10 burgers in her mouth at once.  
“Amethyst, I’m cutting you off, if you keep eating like this I’ll be middle class again by the end of the summer!” said Greg.  
“Yikes, you sound like Pearl, Greg,” Amethyst complained.  
Their bickering was interrupted by a big purple explosion coming from the Convention Center, Steven turned to Ben, “Hero time?” he asked.  
“Hero Time,” Ben slapped the watch and turned into Ghostfreak, “I’ll meet you there.” he said in his now raspy voice, he phased through the ground and emerged in the convention center, he noticed Gwen, Pearl and Connie were all scattered across the floor, he drifted over to Gwen, “What happened?”  
“Ugh, long story short, I’m magic and she hates me because of that,” Gwen explained.  
“Woah wait, magic?”  
“I’ll explain later, let’s just deal with the psychopath!”  
“Right, sorry,” Ben flew to Charmcaster and attempted to attack, but was suddenly forced down to the ground like a thousand pounds were weighing him down suddenly.  
“Oh, you’re one of those aliens from the news!” said Charmcaster.  
“I’m on the news?” ben grunted, “Sweet.”  
Charmcaster scoffed, “Anyways…” she aimed her hand at Gwen and he Grimoire flew towards her hand, “I’ll take that! Now for the rest of my belongings,” her eyes lit up and some of her magical items returned to her… but not all, “W-where’s the rest?” She looked to Gwen, who had the Luck and Keystone charms still, “H-how did you do that!?” she attempted to bring them to her again but to no avail, “Stop that!”  
“I-I’m not doing anything!” Gwen protested.  
Charmcaster growled, “They must’ve bonded with you,” her frown turned into a twisted grin, “Which means I can only get them if I KILL YOU!”  
Gwen inhaled sharply, then felt the same magical burst she felt when she touched the Keystone, everything became a blur.  
Steven and Amethyst burst through the doors, Charmcaster whipped around to them and shot magic bursts at them, Steven blocked with his shield.  
“What the heck is happening!?” Amethyst yelled.  
“Magic,” said Ben, phasing through the floor and timing out.  
“Makes sense,” said Steven.  
“Also we need to stop her before she kills Gwen,” Ben explained.  
“Wizard battle!” yelled Amethyst, she whipped Charmchaster and rolled into a ball, then she spin-dashed around her, tying her up, “Booyah!” she cheered, “I am the superior wizard!”  
Chamrcaster broke the whip and shot Amethyst, “The preferred term is a sorcerer!”  
Gwen staggered to her feet, Charmcaster noticed her and shot magic, but it was deflected, Gwen’s eyes became pure white and Charmcaster looked in horror. After a blinding flash of white, Gwen looked down into her hands, and saw a pink Grimoire, “Woah…”  
Charmcaster was fuming, “You shouldn’t even have that! Y-you aren’t a real sorcerer!”  
“Looks like you’re wrong!” said Gwen, shrugging.  
Charmcaster looked around, she was surrounded by a shapeshifter, multiple warriors, and a budding sorcerer, despite the fact she was missing most of her magical items were gone she decided a tactical retreat was necessary, “Alright Gwen, you win, for now. But know this, I will be back,” she snapped her fingers and was gone.  
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  
Gwen looked at her Grimoire, “This was such a crazy day…” she looked around, “Whatever happened to the rest of her charms though?”  
Pearl stepped up and pulled them from her Gem, “I figured it’d be best to hide them from her!” she handed them to Gwen.  
“You’re giving them to me?”  
“Well, I have no use for them!”  
Gwen smiled and pocketed them.  
“So you have powers now?” Ben asked.  
“Yep! And from the looks of it, I might be stronger than you!” Gwen bragged.  
Ben chuckled, “Yeah right, magic’s got nothing on my aliens!”  
“Your aliens didn’t even lay a hand on Charmcaster!”  
Ben tried thinking of a retort but stopped himself, “Yeah ya know what you’re right.”  
Gwen smiled,” Alright, let's get back to Grandpa.”  
They all left the convention center, a few minutes later, a member of the staff just got off their break and looked in to see everything was destroyed, he slowly backed away from the carnage and went home.


	5. Together With You

Pearl turned on a CD player, she started bobbing her head and snapping to the music, “Always remember Steven, the key to achieving your fusion is to keep not only a physical rhythm but also an emotional rhythm with your partner, observe.”  
She danced with Garnet and they ended in a pose, “Like this!”  
He and Amethyst tried mimicking their moves, leading to Steven falling on the ground.  
Steven tried pairing with Pearl and Garnet, but still ending in Steven falling on the ground.  
“Aw, it’s no good! I can’t fuse,” Steven pouts and crosses his arm.  
“Nah you can totally do it man!” said Amethyst, “You have a Gem, and you can do other Gem things, fusion should be a piece of cake for you!”  
“You need to remember to be emotionally in sync with your fusion partner,” said Pearl, “I know it’s hard but its something that is pivotal to being a gem warrior!”   
“Mutual love is also required in a fusion,” said Garnet, “an unhealthy relationship makes an unhealthy fusion.”  
“That’s all so confusing!” Steven cried.  
“You’ll get it eventually,” said Garnet, patting him on the head.  
“Steven!” said Connie opening the door to Greg’s RV, Ben following behind, “Ben and I found this AWESOME place, let’s go check it out!”  
Steven looked to Pearl and she nodded, Steven smiled and ran out with Connie.  
The three kids walked over, “We saw some crazy lights coming out of this place, and the music was amazing!” said Ben.  
They were met with the entrance, they tried to get in but were stopped by a bouncer, “Sorry, no kids allowed.”  
Ben scoffed, “I’ll have you know sir that we are teens who may or may not have quite a lot of attitude.”  
“I don't care how much attitude you three have no kids allowed in this party.”  
Ben groaned, “Alright. Come on guys,” they left.  
“This stinks!” said Steven, “I wanna party!”  
“Man if only he knew I was a superhero,” said Ben.  
“If only we could look like an adult…” said Connie.  
They sat and thought for a moment, and the collectively perked up as they got a genius plan.  
A few minutes later, Steven, Connie and Ben walked back to the party, Steven on Connie’s shoulders and hidden in a tall trench coat, and Ben on a leash (As Wildmutt of course)  
The Bouncer squinted, “Uh… no.”  
“What do you mean?” said Steven, making his voice deeper, “I am an adult, I uh…” Connie whispers something to him, “I pay taxes!”  
“Yeah no, even if I did but that, I wouldn’t let that thing in,” he pointed at Wildmutt.  
“That’s my seeing-eye dog!” said Steven.  
“It doesn’t have eyes!”  
Steven and Connie sighed and turned around, Ben snarled at the bouncer as he turned around and walked away.  
They all sat in the sand, defeated, Ben turned back to human.  
“It’s not fair,” said Connie.  
“Don’t worry, it was just a party, we could go to another one sometime!”  
“No… you don’t get it, Steven. I… I never went to a dance or party like this,” she sighed, “I was always too nervous but… I thought if I was with you it’d be different.”  
Steven stood up and held out his hand, “I can dance with you!”  
Connie blushed and took his hand, Steven put on some catchy music on his phone and began dancing with her, Ben watched from his spot seated on the sand. Steven and Connie’s dance became more elegant and fluid… until Connie tripped, Steven caught her and they both started laughing, Steven’s gemstone grew brighter and brighter.   
A few moments of confusion passed, Steven and Connie opened their eyes, “What.. happened.”  
“Guys!?” said Ben, helping them up, they struggled a bit and looked down at Ben.  
“Why are you… short,” they said, their sight was directed to their now long legs, “Why are… I, we so…” they felt along their body, and saw the Gemstone in their stomach, “S-Steven!? Connie!?”  
They stumbled a bit, Ben still looking in awe, “Is that possible!?”  
“I… yes,” they said, “Wait, that means, you’re a... we…” their eyes widened, “I’m a fusion!” they became chuckling and running around in their new body until they tripped, they got up and said, “I need to tell the gems!”  
The Gems were directed toward frantic running into Greg’s RV, the new fusion swung the door open, “I FUSED!” They said.  
“Wh-WHAT!?” Pearl screamed, “S-Steven, and Connie!? Is that you?”  
“Yep!” They said proudly.  
Pearl fell back and supported herself on the counter, “Th-this is… Since Steven is half-human, he must be able to fuse… with humans!”  
“Heck yeah!” Amethyst cheered, “Go, Steven… Connie… Stevonnie!”  
Pearl was still faint, “Garnet what should-”  
Garnet had a wide grin on her face, Ben was a bit put off by that, she approached Stevonnie and put her hands on their shoulders, “Stevonnie. You are not 2 people, you are not 1 person, what you are, is an experience. So go have FUN!”  
Stevonnie smiled and ran out of the RV, Ben following behind.  
Stevonnie and Ben made it to a boardwalk, “Woah, this place is so cool!” Ben said.  
“Yeah…” Stevonnie started to notice people staring at them, “Is it just me or are people noticing us?”  
Ben laughed, “Are you serious? you’re a 6-foot tall person with long flowing hair and a gemstone in your stomach,” Ben blushed a bit, “You’re kinda hard not to notice.”  
“Oh yeah,” Stevonnie said, “This is, really weird to get used to.”  
“What’s it like?” Ben asked.  
Stevonnie looked at their hands, “I dunno, it’s kinda like what Garnet said, I’m not Steven or Connie, but I’m also both of them, but mostly a new person? It’s so odd.”  
Ben smiled, “That's kinda how I feel when I transform, I’m still me but also I’m not me like I’m seeing everything with someone else’s eyes.”  
“Woah, that’s pretty deep, dude”  
The two chuckled.  
Stevonnie’s attention was grabbed by a donut stand, “I’ll be right back,” they walked up and waited for someone to come and help them.  
“Sorry for the wait,” said the worker, “How can I help yooooooooo-” she was caught off guard by Stevonnie.  
Stevonnie looked down at her, “I’ll take a strawberry sprinkle and chocolate fudge donut please.”  
While still staring at Stevonnie, she hands them the donuts.  
“Thanks!” Said Stevonnie, “What do I owe you?”  
“I-it’s on the house,” said the lady.  
“Oh thanks!” said Stevonnie, “But you know, that’s a pretty poor business practice.”  
Stevonnie went to sit on a bench, and opened their bag of donuts, “There you go, one for me and one for…” they looked at the 2 donuts in their hands, “Me…”   
“We don't have to keep doing this…” they said, putting the donuts down.  
“No. It’s fine, we don’t have to stop,” they straightened up and nodded.  
“A-are you sure?” they gripped their leg.  
“Yes, it’s fine,” said Stevonnie, they took a deep breath.  
“Hey, you ok?” asked Ben.  
“Yeah, we’re… I’m fine!”  
“Cool, cuz I just got a GREAT idea!”  
“Oh?”  
“Let’s try to get into that party again!” Ben said excitedly.  
“Oh yeah! C’mon, let’s go!”  
They ran back to the party, it seemed even brighter and livelier than before.  
“Oh wait,” said Stevonnie.  
“What?” Ben asked.  
“You still can’t get in!”  
Ben brushed them off, “You two go in and have fun, I’ll figure something out.”  
“O-oh, alright, see ya then!” Stevonnie ran off.  
The bouncer let Stevonnie in, and they were blown away. The floor was made up of colorful lights, the front of the room had 2 giant speakers, hooked up to the stereotypical DJ turntables, but suspiciously no DJ to be seen.  
They just walked around for a bit, not quite knowing what to do, when a tall, dark-haired boy walked up to them, he leaned against the wall, pointed a finger gun at them and said, “Hey babe.”  
Stevonnie looked around, and said, “A-are you talking to me?”  
“Well of course,” said the creepy stranger, “You’re the hottest one here.”  
Stevonnie blushed and scoffed, “Who do you think you are?”  
“The name’s Bradley,” he said, cocky as ever, “and what should I call you?”  
“Not babe, that’s for sure,” they said with a growl, “My name is Stevonnie.”  
“Ooo, exotic!” said Bradley.  
Stevonnie pushed him away, “I really don’t wanna deal with you.”  
Bradley growled, “Oh, no one, turns their back to me!”  
Ben snuck around to the back, “I don't need to be bigger to get into that party, I need to be smaller!” he smacked his watch and shrunk down, into the form of Greymatter… that is he would’ve if he looked at the watch before smacking it, he instead became Upgrade, “Aw man, How am I supposed to sneak around as this guy?” he looked around and saw a power outlet and smiled, well the best he could without a mouth.  
Meanwhile, Stevonnie began having more fun at the party, dancing and meeting new people, Bradley was nowhere to be seen, overall just having a good time… that is until the DJ finally appeared, he wore a helmet that was made up of a screen with bright LEDs, he also wore a long flowing cloak that dragged behind him.  
“How is everyone doing?” said the mysterious DJ, “I’m your host, Lord Decibel. And you… are not leaving.”  
Everyone stopped dancing and looked at him, he put his hands on the turntables and the music became deafening noise, which solidified and became walls surrounding the room, protecting him and blocking the Doors.  
“What the heck!?” yelled Stevonnie, at this point everyone was panicking, and Lord Decibel was looming over them laughing.  
Just as the Chaos ensued, Ben blorped through a power outlet and into the room, he ran to Stevonnie and said, “What’s going on?”  
“That freaky dude in the mask just trapped all of us in!” They explained.  
Ben glared at Lord Decibel, “Don't worry guys, I got this.” he ran up to him and tried pushing through the wall of sound, but was launched back and was turned human.  
“... my head hurts,” said Ben.  
“We gotta do something!” said Stevonnie.  
“I gotta wait for the watch to recharge, you take a turn.”  
“What am I supposed to do, I-I left my sword in the RV!” Stevonnie said nervously.  
“Dude, you’re half Steven, shouldn’t you also have his powers?”  
Stevonnie gasped and then summoned a shield, “Alright!” They threw it at Lord Decibel, it stopped at the wall of sound and was launched into a wall, “Dang!” they yelled.  
“Man, this would be so much easier if he didn't have those giant speakers around him.”  
“Ben that’s it!” Said Stevonnie, “When you recharge, turn into something that can break the speakers!”  
“Like who?” said Ben.  
Stevonnie put their hand on their chin, “Hm, we need to get through the wall and also disable those speakers… I got it! Use Overflow!”  
Ben snorted, “Overflow? Seriously?”  
“Trust me!”  
Just then the watch glowed green, Ben turned the dial and slapped down on Overflow’s icon. He transformed into Overflow, “Now what?”  
Stevonnie pointed at one of the front speakers, “Aim at that one, don't let up!”  
Ben fired highly pressurized water at the speaker, the wall of sound made it difficult to get past, he just kept on firing until it eventually pushed through, the water soaked the speaker and it short-circuited, it fried all the power in the room.  
Stevonnie and Ben turned their attention to Lord Decibel, who tried to escape, Stevonnie threw a shield in front of him and they grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him.  
“Woah, hey, don't do anything crazy!” he said.  
Stevonnie removed his mask to reveal… “Bradley!?” they said, dropping him and unfusing.  
“What the Heck!?” he said, “You were a couple of kids!? Aw no way I’m bailing,” he opened the door and was stopped by the police, he was thrown in the back of their car as Ben used Overflow to escape without being noticed.  
“I can’t believe we actually fused!” said Steven back at the RV.  
“Yeah, we were really great!” said Connie, “I’ve never felt anything like it!”  
“Sorry we didn’t get to go to a real party,” Steven said sadly.  
Connie gave him a big hug, “I’m just happy I got to be Stevonnie with you.”


	6. In the Hands of the Puppet Master

“I’m so excited!” squealed Gwen as they walked into the Mall.  
“Seriously?” said Ben, “We have a Mall just like this in Bellwood.”  
“No, we do not!” Gwen retorted, “30 Clothes stores, a whole floor dedicated to a food court, an indoor amusement park and a movie theatre!”  
“So?” said Ben.  
“And one of the world’s biggest arcades,” Gwen said smugly.  
“Alright, I’m sold,” Ben said excitedly.  
As they walked through the large mall, Steven stopped in front of a jewelry store and stared in stunned silence, “U-uh… Pearl???”  
Pearl looked at the jewels on display and grabbed Steven, “Try not to think about it too much.”  
“Hey everyone, check it out!” said Amethyst, she pointed toward a short man on a stage.  
The small man revealed a pocket watch, “Many men have tried and failed to unlock the secrets to the Human Mind. No one can control the unlimited potential that lies within the cerebral cortex, no one… except me, that is.”  
“Oh please,” scoffed Pearl.  
“To demonstrate the spectacular powers I wield in my hand, I’ll need a few… volunteers.”  
“C’mon Steven!” said Ben, grabbing his arm and running up to the stage.  
On the stage, besides the hypnotist and the two boys, were a few adults, the hypnotist walked in front of the group and began swinging his pocket watch back and forth, “When I snap my fingers, you’ll be completely under my control”  
Ben leaned over to Steven, “What a load of stuff am I right Ste-”  
The man snapped his fingers, everyone on stage straightened out. The audience gasped.  
“You are now under the complete control of Sublimino!” the short man said, he turned to Steven, “When I snap my fingers yet again, you will become a small, crying baby!” he snaps his fingers.  
Steven’s gemstone glows as he shrinks down to less than a third of his size and began crying. Sublimino was astonished, the Crystal Gems looked to each other nervously, “U-uh, When I snap again you’ll be back to your normal self,” he snapped again and Steven grew back into a Teenager.  
Sumblimino went to Ben, “You. When I snap my fingers you’ll become a chicken!” he snapped and in a flash of Green, Ben became a 7-foot tall, anthropomorphic Chicken alien, he began walking around the stage bobbing his head and clucking, Sumblimono snapped again and turned him human, the audience stood and clapped, Sublimino shook off the surpise and bowed, saying to himself, “These two will be quite useful,” he straightened out, “I shall now return control to these fine citizens!” he snapped his fingers.  
“What was that?” said Max.  
“I-I don’t know,” said Pearl, “Steven’s age changed before, but that Sumblimino human seemed to have control over his and Ben’s powers!”  
“Uh, what are you guys talking about?” asked Ben.  
“Wuh? Well, we were talking about… nothing,” said Pearl.  
“We should go,” said Garnet bluntly.  
“Why?” asked Steven, “We just got here.”  
Light reflected in Garnet’s visor, “I have a bad feeling about that man.”  
They all turned to Sublimino, who was intently staring at Ben and Steven.  
“...Yeah, let’s go,” said Ben.  
They left the mall, the kids went to a curb and sat down to talk.  
“The gems seemed really freaked out back there, what happened when we were out?” Asked Ben.  
“Well,” Gwen started, “Steven turned into a literal baby…”  
“...And Ben turned into a giant buff chicken.” Connie finished.  
“WHAT!?” the boys said simultaneously.  
“It was really creepy…” said Gwen, “It seemed like real mind control. I wonder if he was a magic user like Charmcaster…”  
“I hope we aren’t cursed!” said Steven.  
Ben scoffed, “I’d think we’d know if we were cursed, Steven,” he stood up, “How about we go play some videogames in the RV?”  
“Yeah!” said Steven, taking a sudden shift in mood, “I got Loney Blade Battle Arena!”  
“Lonely Blade!?” Said Ben, disgusted, “Nah, we’re playing Sumo Slammer Smackdown!”  
Steven gave a long, exaggerated gasp, “Sumo Slammers!? That’s a ripoff of Lonely Blade!”  
“YOU TAKE THAT BACK!” Ben yelled.  
“Ishiyama’s character arc in part 4 CLEARLY copied Lonely Blade’s from Part 2,” Steven retorted.  
“They’ll probably be at this for a while,” said Gwen, rubbing her forehead.  
Ben and Steven continued arguing while walking into the RV.  
They eventually got tired of arguing and went to bed, where they slept peacefully… until 12:00 midnight. A loud, bell-like noise rang through the air, various people who volunteered for Sublimino’s show stood up, their eyes glowing yellow… including Ben and Steven. The boys, along with all the other hypnotized civilians made their way back to the Mall.  
“Ahahaha!” Cackled Sublimino, “Go my minions! Steal all the valuables, and next, we’ll go after the Bank!” He looked over and saw Ben and Steven, “You two, to me now.” Ben became a small turtle alien and teleported to Sublimino. Steven glowed pink and appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye, “Amazing!” he said, “Monster boy… make me a sandwich.”  
Ben’s form turned into something resembling a velociraptor, and he sped off and returned with a perfectly made sandwich.  
“Hah! Outstanding!” said Sublimino, “Pink boy, I can’t have a sandwich without a drink.”  
He ran off and returned with a drink, Sublimino took a long sip and sighed, “I could get used to this,” he looked back at Ben, “Turn into something funny.”  
Ben became a short, fish-like alien with 2 small legs, Sublimino burst out in laughter.  
Back in Greg’s RV, Pearl emerged from her door, “Ok I’ll just check to see if he’s still breathing. I always get so paranoid leaving him here, a wild animal could get in or-” Pearl saw that his bed was empty, “Steven?” she pulled back his blanket, nothing. She looked all over the RV and couldn’t find him, “STEVEN’S BEEN KIDNAPPED AGAIN!” she yelled. Greg and Connie jolted awake, while Garnet and Amethyst came from their doors.  
“We should go get Gwen and Max, then go look for them in the Mall,” said Garnet.   
The families grouped up just outside the Mall entrance. Connie looked thru the windows, “They all look like Zombies.”  
“Do you see the boys at all?” asked Max.  
“Hmm,” Connie looked around, and saw 2 beings moving around at insane speeds, “Yeah, I think that’s them.”  
“Let’s go,” said Garnet, summoning her gauntlets.  
The team burst into the Mall, immediately grabbing the attention of Sublimino, “You there! Weirdly dressed folk! Are you gonna try and get in my way?”  
“Remove these humans from your control at once!” Garnet yelled.  
“Oh yeah? And what makes you think you’re the ones calling the shots?” Sublimino asked.  
“We are the defenders of Earth!” Garnet yelled.  
“The Crystal Gems!” yelled Pearl.  
“So lay off the humans, chump!” said Amethyst.  
“Monster boy, pink child, get rid of those weirdos,” Sublimino commanded.  
Ben turned into Diamondhead and shot at the Gems, while Steven threw a shield at Gwen and Max, Gwen used a levitation spell to hold the shield in place. Steven appeared in front of Gwen in the blink of an eye, formed a bubble around his hand and punched her in her face, sending her flying, she caught herself by floating in the air, only to see Steven launching himself in the air, every punch Steven threw was blocked by pink discs created by Gwen.  
“I don’t wanna hurt you Steven!” said Gwen, “Just quit punching me please!”  
Steven quit punching and landed on the ground.  
“Ok, ok, so how about you stop glowing and,” Steven held out his hand and created a polygonal bubble around Gwen, “Uh… Steven?”   
Steven began throwing Gwen around the room, ramming her into walls over and over. Steven stared blankly at Gwen while he attacked, Grandpa Max snuck up behind Steven and pinched a pressure point, making him pass out, and his skin returned to it’s normal hue.  
“YOU COULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT SOONER!?” Gwen yelled.  
“Sorry, sweety!” Max apologized.  
Meanwhile, Connie and the Gems were fighting off Ben, he turned into a short, pure white alien.  
“What’s this one supposed to do? Cute me to death?” Snarked Amethyst.  
Ben split into 4 and let out an ear-piercing screech.  
“AUGH! ITS WORSE THAN THE WAILING STONE!” Yelled Amethyst.  
“I can deal with this!” said Pearl.  
“WHAT!?” Amethyst yelled.  
Pearl gracefully jumped in the air, she aimed her spear at the clones and took them out one by one, the last remaining Ben turned into a red manta ray alien, it flew past Pearl and shot lasers at Garnet, who blocked the attack with her gauntlets. Ben landed and turned into a large alein made of rocks and flowing with blue electricity.  
Pearl gasped, “Oh no… a-a-a Fulmini!!!”  
“Pearl! We may need a bit more firepower for this!” commanded Garnet.  
Pearl nodded, the two began dancing, their bodies combined into one. They became a tall, four armed gem with big hair, four eyes, and big circular glasses.   
‘Well this is a rare occurrence!” said Sardonyx, “A special appearance from the one and only Sardonyx! And you’re about to feel the full force of my elegant power!”  
Ben created a ball of electricity and threw it at Sardonyx, who summoned a hammer (formed from Garnet’s Gauntlets and Pearl’s Spear) and deflected the ball back at Ben.  
Ben was pushed back a bit but began running at the fusion, making a sword out of electricity, and swung at Sardonyx. She elegantly dodged the flurry of attacks and kept hitting him with her hammer. Ben began stumbling, probably due to the intense headache he was getting, Amethyst snuck behind him and spin dashed into the symbol on his chest, turning him Human.  
“NO NO NO!!!” Yelled Sublimino, “YOU FOOLS RUINED EVERYTHING!!!”   
“Fo sure bro!” said Amethyst.  
Pearl pointed her spear at him, “Now release the rest of these humans or face the consequences!”  
Sublimino rubbed his chin a bit, “How about instead… I have all my minions attack you.”  
The Gems all gasped, as they were tackled by a hundred people.  
“We can’t hurt them!” said Pearl, “They’re mind controlled but they’re still humans.”  
“Yeah, they’re too squishy to fight!” said Amethyst.  
“I’ll handle him!” said Gwen, creating a staircase out of pink platforms and got to the same floor as Sublimino, who yelped and ran away. Gwen made a rope out of Magic and reeled him in, suspending him upside down.  
She took his pocket watch, “I’ll take this… what the…” on the back of it was a gemstone, it reflected the light in a very strange way and changed colors when looking at different angles, “Oh my gosh…” she threw the watch to Pearl, “Is this one of those corrupted Gems you told me about?”  
Pearl examined it, “Oh my, an Ametrine!” she bubbled it and sent it away.  
“How did you get that?” Gwen yelled, but Sublimino was completely passed out.  
“Ha! The dork couldn’t even handle being defeated,” Amethyst joked.  
Gwen went over to Ben as he woke up, “You ok cuz?”  
“Is… hero time?” Ben slurred.  
“Yeah you’re fine”  
“Wait, was that guy mind controlling me again?” asked Ben, “I didn't do anything embarrassing did I?”  
The Crystal Gems cringed.  
"Let's just be glad this is over," said Max.  
Gwen chuckled," Yeah, until the next random person does something stupid."  
"Until then, let's get Steven and Ben to bed," said Pearl, " they look exhausted.  
Ben and Steven are carried back to the RVs, exhausted from their long, long, night.


	7. Some Warp

The Crystal Gems walked out of a flower field, chatting about the epic battle they just finished.  
“Pearl that was so cool!” said Amethyst, “The way you threw your spear, and it went all, BOOSH”  
Pearl, sending away a bubbled corrupted Gem, said, “Yes, well Amethyst, the way you tied it up with your whip, it almost resembled a strategy.”  
Amethyst blushed, “Yea, well I’m good at that stuff too ya know.”  
Ben and Steven also exited the flower field, Steven coughing and sniffling, “Guh… sorry I couldn’t help much, I think I’m allergic to the... the, ah AH ACHOO” he sneezed on Garnet’s leg, “Sorry”  
“Steven,” Pearl scolded, “You’re supposed to do that into your antecubital fossa,” she stepped onto the warp pad.  
“My what?”  
Pearl sighed, “You know uh,” she points to her inner elbow, “this thing.”  
The warp pad activated, as they were flying back to Greg’s RV, Steven sneezed and floated outside of the stream, “Woah…” he said, seeing the planet from a whole new perspective, but something caught his eye, another stream of light, he was pulled back in.  
“Steven!” said Pearl, “You know you aren’t supposed to stick your head out of the stream! It’s very cold and there’s low air!”  
“I SAW SOMETHING OUT THERE!” Steven blurted out.  
“What!?” Pearl questioned.  
“There was something using the warps!” He explained.  
“That’s impossible,” said Pearl.  
“There’s no one out there Steven, don’t worry,” Said Garnet patting him on the head.  
Steven crossed his arms, Ben patted him on the shoulder, “Hey, I believe you.”  
“Thanks,” said Steven.  
Later that night, Steven couldn’t sleep, he glared at the Warp pad seated peacefully in the back of the RV. He jumped at the sound of Amethyst’s door opening, “wussap Steve-o,” she walks over to the pantry and starts eating the cheese packets from the macaroni and cheese boxes, “Want some?”  
“I-I’m good…” he continued to look at the warp pad.  
“Amethyst looks to the warp pad and back at him, “Still shaken up by that thing you saw in the warp stream?”  
“N-no…” said Steven.  
“Kay, bye!” she said going back to her room.  
Steven returned his attention to the warp pad, Connie hug down over the side of her bunk, “I can help keep a lookout!” she said.  
Steven and Connie, armed with water guns stood at a safe distance from the warp pad, “Looks like we’re not sleeping tonight” said Steven.  
A few minutes later, Steven and Connie were struggling to keep their eyes open, “We might need backup…” Connie said. The two kids go and get Ben from the Rustbucket, (They asked Gwen but she refused because she said she needed rest).  
… a few moments later all 3 were on the floor sleeping.  
That morning, Pearl lightly tapped Steven on the head, “Steven!” she said softly, “we have a surprise for you-”  
Steven yelled and sprayed her with a water gun.  
“Well, no cookies for you,” said Garnet, holding a tray of freshly baked cookies.  
“Aw, yeah! Cookie time!” said Amethyst coming out from her door, she snatched the cookie tray from Garnet and devoured them all.  
“Slow down Amethyst!” said Garnet.  
“Sorry Pearl… I didn’t…” Steven began.  
“You didn’t sleep,” Garnet said bluntly.  
“Yeah…”  
“This isn’t about the thing you thought you saw in the stream was it?” Pearl said.  
“I know I saw something out there!” Steven defended himself, “Connie and Ben believe me, why don’t you?”  
Pearl put her hand on Steven, “Steven, we are the only ones on this whole planet who can use the warps, there is nothing to worry about.”  
Steven looks away.  
Pearl frowns, “nod in agreement if you understand, Steven,” he doesn’t, she grabbed his face, “Nod in agreement-”  
Garnet interrupts, “I think we should check, for Steven’s sake.”  
Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Steven, Connie, and Ben stood on the Warp Pad and were sent off to another pad. They first landed in a big, empty desert.  
“Everything’s fine here,” said Pearl, they teleported again.  
They landed in an underwater room, with many hourglasses lining the room and sand covered the floor, “What is this place? Why is there so much sand here?” Ben asked.  
The rest of the group cringed and warped to the next Warp Pad.  
They went to a battlefield littered with abandoned weapons and infested with overgrown strawberries, “Nothing here,” said Pearl.  
They then traveled to a huge Geode in a crater, “Nothing here either,” said Amethyst.   
“Good to see the Geode is holding together well though,” said Pearl.  
Finally, they warped to the Sky Spire, “And nothing here either,” said Pearl, “As I said, nothing is using the Warp Pads.”  
“...you’re wrong,” Steven grumbled.  
“ExCUSE me!?” Pearl said.  
“I-I mean, what if it came from Space!” Steven defended himself.  
Pearl scowled, “I… don’t appreciate your tone.” they warped yet again.  
They were met with a platform surrounded with water, aside from the Warp Pad they entered with, there were multiple shattered Warp Pads and one huge one in the center.  
Pearl walked toward the center one, “These are the warps that once connected us to other planets. If something tried to come from space, it would be through here. But wait! This warp pad is broken, marked inactive by the very depressed cartoon breakfast sticker you placed here yourself!” she pointed toward the Crying Breakfast Friend sticker.  
Amethyst hugs Steven, “Don’t worry bud, Pearl just gets all… ugh sometimes, ya know?”  
Garnet places her hand on Steven's head, “We’re safe.”  
“I… I guess so…” said Steven. He put his hand next to the Crying Breakfast Friend and groaned.  
“Hey,” said Ben, “Even if there is something out there, I’ll just stomp it out with Humungousaur,” Steven weakly smiled.  
“Ugh, that took forever!” said Amethyst.  
“It was important for Steven to feel safe,” said Garnet.  
“Yes,” said Pearl, “And Steven feels much safer now!”  
Steven’s smile turned to an angry frown, “You know what. I’m a little tired… of YOU GUYS telling me how I feel!”  
The gems all gasped, Ben and Connie backed away.  
“I know I saw something in the Warp Stream!” Steven yelled.  
“And I know you DIDN’T!” Pearl retorted.  
“Oh yeah because you’re sooooo smart!” Steven insulted.  
“I am THOUSANDS of years older than you Steven, I know better! You’re only 14 years old! How are you supposed to know better than me?”  
“Why is it so hard to listen to me huh? Just because you didn’t see what I saw, you have no idea!”  
“This is new…” said Amethyst, “I kinda like it!  
“Steven,” Pearl said, rubbing her forehead, “You just don’t know what you’re talking about!”  
Steven’s hands curled into fists, he looked Pearl in the eye and yelled, “It sounds like you don't know what YOU’RE talking about!”  
Before Pearl could respond, Garnet got in between them, “That’s enough you two. Steven, let it go.”  
Steven gasped and looked away. They all silently got on the Warp Pad and went back home.  
Later that night Steven sat looking at the warp pad with a bowl in his lap, Amethyst exited her Room, “Hey Ste-man”  
He just continued looking at the Warp Pad.  
“Whatcha eatin’?”  
“Macaroni and nothing!”  
“Ugh, whatever, lemme know when you quit being such a sad sack,” she went back through her door.  
Steven sighed, “What am I doing…” said Steven, “Maybe Pearl was-” he was interrupted by a green orb crashing through the roof of the RV, waking Greg up, “What the- Steven! What is that?”  
Steven dropped his macaroni, and began laughing, “hehehehe HAHAHAHA I KNEW IT! I WAS RIGHT!”  
The orb sprouted 4 floating limbs, it waddled over to the warp pad, Steven snatched it up, “Oh no ya don't!” he struggled with the thing, “Dad get the fishing net!” it sprayed a green fluid on Steven, he threw it and it collided with the Warp Pad, chipping it.  
The damaged robot repaired the Warp Pad with the green fluid and activated it, Steven jumped after it and was Teleported away, “Steven!” Greg yelled.  
Steven floated up and grabbed the little Robot, “Gotcha! I won’t let you get a- ouch!” he was hit in the back by another robot, and then another, and another, until he was covered by small green orbs, they began pushing him out of the stream, Steven tried to fight back but was eventually shot out of it.  
He drifted away from the warp stream, holding the one damaged robot, he struggled to breathe, “Heh, I did it… I was right…” he looked out into the vast nothingness that surrounded him, “And now… I’m gonna die… a dumb, small little sad sack..” he faintly heard the sound of a Warp Pad activating, and felt himself being grabbed and pulled into a warp stream. Garnet held him tight as Steven began breathing heavily.  
“You’re ok. I got you,” said Garnet.  
Amethyst, Pearl, and Ben caught up with Steven and Garnet, “Steven I’m so sorry!” said Pearl, “Garnet said she saw you being pushed out the Warp Stream, and- and… I’m sorry!”  
There were a bunch of these things!” said Steven, holding out the Robot he captured.  
“Then let’s see what they were up to,” Garnet said.  
They went back to the Galaxy Warp, a pile of the Robots were covering the giant warp pad in the same green fluid, Steven dropped the broken one.  
“What are they doin’?” asked Amethyst.  
“I think… they’re fixing it,” Steven explained.  
As they all backed away, the Warp Pad was good as new. A bright light shot from the sky onto the Galaxy Warp, Garnet grabbed everyone and jumped into a pillar, out of sight.  
The light dimmed, and a green Gem appeared she hand long limbs, with floating fingers at the ends of her arms, and Diamond-shaped hair her Gem was on her forehead and was protected by a green-tinted visor.  
“Who is that?” Steven whispered.  
“I don’t know!” Pearl said surprised, Garnet shushed them.  
She turned on a Screen using her floating fingers, “Log Date 3 1 2,” she began, “this is Peridot, performing Earth Hub maintenance check.”  
“Peridot,” said Steven, “Her name is Peridot,” Amethyst and Pearl covered Steven’s mouth.  
She looked around, “...Strange,” she turned back to her Screen, “Preparing to locate and reactivate Prime Kindergarten-” she was interrupted by the broken robot nudging her.  
“Aww, they’re like her babies!” said Steven, Peridot proceeded to smash the robot under her feet, Steven covered his mouth before he could scream.  
“Now to access the domestic warp…” a small rock fell from the pillar the Gems were hiding on, at the sight of the figures looming above her, Peridot shot a green laser at them, just as it impacted, Ben transformed and jumped down from the pillar, his landing shook the platform.  
Ben glared at Peridot and yelled, “Humungousaur!”  
“How did you get here, Vaxxisaurian?” Peridot asked, “Earth is not your… her attention was drawn to the badge on his chest, she recognized the green hourglass shape, “It… can’t be…”  
Before she could say anything, Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven jumped down and attacked her, “Who do you Clods think you are!? You’re compromising my mission!”  
“We are the Crystal Gems!” Garnet announced, “And we won’t let you hurt this planet!”  
“... So you haven’t been destroyed, I must inform Yellow Diamond of this!” she used her floating fingers as a propeller and maneuvered above Humungousaur and back to the Galaxy Warp, “You stupid insignificant clods have no idea what you’re dealing with! Nyeh hehe!” she warped away.  
“What was that about?” Ben asked.  
“And why was she here?” Steven followed up.  
“It doesn’t matter,” said Garnet, summoning her Gauntlet and making it grow bigger than Garnet’s whole body, she slammed it onto the Galaxy Warp, demolishing it into a bunch of small rocks, “She won’t be coming back.”  
Peridot approached Yellow Diamond’s throne room, she saluted, “My diamond”  
“Your mission to reactivate the Kindergarten, was it successful?” The towering figure asked.  
“No, My Diamond, I was attacked, by the Crystal Gems.”  
Yellow Diamond inhaled sharply, “Impossible… what about their leader, did you see Rose Quartz?”  
“No, my Diamond, but I saw this,” she pulled up and image on her screen of Ben’s watch, “It’s real My Diamond, and it is bonded with an Earthling.”  
“Hm… this complicates things, we cannot let it be destroyed by The Cluster. I shall send out some bounty hunters. Thank you for your work, that will be all.”  
Peridot saluted and left the room.


	8. Send in the Clowns

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl arrived on the Warp Pad, looking exhausted.  
“Hi guys!” said Steven, “How’d the mission go?”  
“It… sucked,” Amethyst sighed.  
“Peridot keeps sending her Robots to the Warp Pads on Earth,” said Pearl.  
Garnet crossed her arms, “It’s annoying.”  
“Well,” said Greg, “I have something that might help with that!”  
“You have something that can stop Peridot from sending robots to Earth?” Asked Pearl.  
“Nope, something MUCH better,” he pulled a handful of slips of paper from his pocket, “Tickets to the circus!”  
The Gems looked at him, confused, but Steven was practically shaking with excitement.  
Before he knew it, they were all entering the circus.  
Ben spoke up, “Y’know, I can stay back, just in case?”  
“Oh, Ben,” said Grandpa Max, “You’re not still scared of-”  
“NO!” Ben defended, “Heh, I mean, no grandpa. I’m fine.”   
In the circus, they were met with good food, rides, animals, it was pretty much perfect, and everyone was having fun, even Ben, much to his surprise.  
The time came for them to go inside the giant tent and watch the show, everyone got seated, except Ben who managed to sneak out.  
“Ok, I don’t think anyone noticed,” he said but was surprised to see Pearl also left, “Pearl? What are you doing here?” he asked.  
“Oh!” she said, a bit surprised, “I just can’t stand those clowns.”  
“Really?” Ben said, surprised.  
“Yes, I just find them so annoying.”  
“Oh, yeah me too,” Ben fibbed.  
They waited outside the tent, Ben watched as Pearl organized items she was pulling out of her gem, throwing away expired coupons and things like that. Occasionally, they’d hear a roar of laughter that just made Ben shiver. After what seemed like ages, Greg Max, Gwen, Connie Steven. Garnet and Amethyst exited the tent, all looking void of emotion and colorless.  
“Geez, are you guys ok?” Ben asked.  
“We’re fine…” said Max weakly, “Just a little, tired…”  
“I can’t believe you missed all the fun…” Steven said, uncharacteristically emotionless.  
“Well... we should hit the road,” said Max, as he tiredly shuffled to the Rust Bucket.  
They began driving again, reaching a mountainside roadway.  
“So I was thinking,” said Ben, “What if next time we fight some bad dude, I use Overflow and splash them with water right?”  
“Uh-huh,” said Gwen with her eyes half-open.  
“And then, you use your magic to like, freeze them or… electrocute them! Wouldn’t that be awesome?” Ben looked over to Gwen who was fast asleep, “Yeesh, guess they really were tired…” Ben walked up to the front, “So Grandpa, where are we headed...?”  
Grandpa Max was passed out at the wheel, the rust bucket was gently swaying side to side, Ben, without thinking twice, slapped his watch and turned into Upgrade. He bonded with the Rust Bucket and stopped it just before it flew off a cliff. Ben let out a mechanical sigh. And then he saw Greg’s RV fly off the cliff. Ben stretched himself out and grabbed Greg’s RV and, using the Rust Bucket as an anchor, he pulled it back to the road.   
Ben unbonded with the Rustbucket, and looked inside Greg’s RV, and unsurprisingly, everyone was fast asleep.   
Pearl exited her door, “What on earth happened?”  
“I dunno,” said Ben, “Grandpa and Gwen passed out on me, and I had to use Upgrade to stop us from plummeting to our doom.”  
“The same thing happened to Garnet and Amethyst,” said Pearl, “Well, Amethyst sleeps all the time, but I’ve never seen Garnet sleep. Ever.”  
“Something’s up...” said Ben, turning human.  
“Indeed,” said Pearl, she thought for a moment and said, “What if... it had something to do with that circus!”  
“... Oh my gosh!” Ben yelled, “I KNEW clowns couldn’t be trusted!”  
“What!?” Pearl asked.  
“Let’s get back to the circus,” said Ben, ignoring her, “There must be a way to turn them back.”  
They walked back to the circus, on their way they passed through a city, it was… desolate.   
“Oh my…” said Pearl.  
“They must’ve also been affected…” said Ben, he began to shiver.  
They made it to the outside of the circus, the gate was riddled with locks.  
“Yeesh,” said Ben, “I guess we’ll need to climb over and-” Ben was interrupted by Pearl slashing the locks with her spear, destroying them all, “Jeez Pearl.”  
“What? We need to get in,” She replied.  
“Y-yeah…” Ben was frozen at the entrance.  
“Is something wrong?” Pearl asked.  
“I-I don't think the clowns are annoying…” Ben said quietly.  
“What?” Pearl asked.  
“They scare me ok?” Ben confessed, “Ever since I was little I was just, so scared of them, the way they move the way they look, their horrible laugh…”  
“Ben…” Pearl knelt down to look him in the eye, “It’s ok to be scared, but there comes a time when you need to overcome your fear. Remember, everyone is counting on you, Gwen, Max, Greg, Steven, they need you, Ben.”  
Ben took a deep breath, “Ok… ok, I’m ready.”  
They entered the circus, everything was eerie and dark. Pearl kept her spear in a battle-ready position, they entered an area with many games surrounding them, and in an instant, they all flashed on, Ben instinctively smacked the watch and turned into Diamondhead.  
“Well well well…” said a voice from the speakers, “look who’s all bright and awake, I’m guessing you didn’t come and enjoy my show.”  
“What did you do to my friends, freak?” Ben yelled, hearing his own booming voice calms his nerves a bit.  
“Well aren’t we feisty?” said the voice, “You two make a fine addition to my crew, but I suppose you wouldn’t want that.”  
“We need you to undo the damage you’ve done to these humans,” said Pearl, “I am a Crystal Gem, and it is my duty to protect the planet Earth!”  
“Blah blah blah, You’re so BORING,” Yelled the voice, “If you want me, come and get me FOOLS!” the speakers switched off, Pearl and Ben were left in silence.  
“Pearl, look over there,” Ben pointed to a lanky, sick-looking man.  
“You wanna mess with the boss? You need to get through me!” he said in a raspy voice.  
“And who are you?” Ben asked.  
“Acid breath…” he said, he exhaled and melted one of the nearby games.  
“Augh, repulsive!” said Pearl.  
“He’s some kinda mutant,” said Ben, forming a diamond barrier between him and Acid Breath, “We can’t let him near us!”  
“Well,” said Pearl, “My Physical Form should be fine, but I don’t know about you, I don't have much experience fighting alongside Petrosapiens.”  
A hole formed through the barrier and Acid Breath jumped through, Ben slapped him away, “Well I guess that answers that!”   
Acid Breath stared at Ben with his sunken eyes, forming a cloud of acid around him, Ben continued forming barriers of Diamond, while Pearl tried to keep him back by firing shots from her Spear.  
“Great,” said Ben, “My indestructible alien is useless here!”  
Pearl looked around, “Not quite, I’ll distract him, you find a way to knock him out!”  
Pearl elegantly dodged and fired at Acid Breath, meanwhile, Ben made a giant tower of crystal. He gave a powerful kick to the base of the tower, making it topple over and crush Acid Breath, shattering the tower.  
Ben timed out and followed Pearl, “We need to hurry if we’re going to save everyone,” she said.  
“I feel good about this! I honestly think I’m getting over my fear already!” said Ben. Suddenly, a woman with long, tendril-like hair dropped from the ceiling, Ben let out a high-pitched shriek.  
“Heh, cute,” said Frightwig, “I suppose you two are upset about my boss taking everyone’s souls huh?”  
“Yeah, a little,” said Ben, “You gonna stop us?”  
“Hey kid, a paycheck is a paycheck,” She attacked them with her hair, Ben rolled out of the way while Pearl tried holding her off.  
“Ben! I can’t do this alone!” Pearl said.  
“It’s still recharging!” Ben yelled back. Ben frantically pressed the buttons on his watch, hoping something, anything would happen, but he was just taunted by the red hourglass symbol staring him in the face, “C’mon you dumb watch, why do you need to recharge? You’re a space watch! Can’t you be powered by the sun or something?”  
Ben’s rambling was interrupted by loud, thunderous footsteps, a large, imposing man with a toenail in his forehead loomed over Ben, “Boss wants you dead,” he said bluntly.  
Ben looked at him, color drained from his face, “Uhm cool… can you… not?”  
“No,” said Thumbskull  
Ben ran from him, Thumbskull following close behind, “Listen big guy, I don't want any trouble, and… you wouldn’t want to hurt a kid right?”  
“Smaller ones, easier to crush.”  
What the hell is wrong with this creep Ben thought.  
Thumbskull punched the ground, making a crack in the ground and tripping Ben. He struggled to free his leg as Thumbskull reeled back, just as Ben thought he was done for, he heard the fami1QAWliar BEEBEEBEEP of his watch recharging, without a second thought he slapped it, and transformed just as Thumbskull’s monstrous hands collided with Ben, he reeled back in pain and looked at Ben’s new, flaming form.  
“You know, normally, I’d have some witty comment, however,” Ben got into a fighting stance, “I’m way too freaked out to think of anything.”  
“Fire boy hurt Thumbskull” he said, “Thumbskull KILL fire boy!”  
“Uh oh” said Ben, he shot fire balls at Thumbskull, he worked through the pain and punched Ben with enough force to send him flying into the air.  
“Frightwig! I kill him!” Thumbskull cheered.  
“Cool, now help me get rid of the bird face over here!” Frightwig yelled.  
Pearl gasped, “Bird fa- why you!” She grabbed her tendril hair and chopped it all off with her spear.  
“NO!” She yelled, “Do you know how long that takes to grow out!?”  
Thumbskull cracked his knuckles, “I handle this”  
“Don't mess her up too much,” said Frightwig, “I wanna see how much that rock in her face sells for… do you hear that?”  
They looked up, and saw what looked like a meteorite, a screaming meteorite. Heatblast’s flaming body collided with Thumbskull, burying him in the ground, Frightwig was knocked down.  
Pearl aimed her spear right at her face, “Where’s the one you work for?”  
She pointed to the big top tent, “Zombozo’s hideout is underground over there. He can be… intense. Be careful”  
“Huh, you’re surprisingly helpful,” said Ben, reverting back to human.  
“Hey, I can’t stand the guy honestly,” she admitted, “At least in jail I wont have to deal with his stupid circus shtick.”  
“Alright then,” said Pearl, “Let's get in there and finally put an end to this.”  
They walked into the large tent, “It’s empty,” said Ben.  
“Maybe it isn’t... “ Pearl put her hand to the ground, all the loose sand was pushed around, and a small metal trap door was revealed.  
“Oh my gosh Pearl! I had no idea you could do that!” said Ben.  
“I just rarely have a use for it,” said Pearl.  
They pried the door open and climbed down a ladder, and were faced with a dark room. Hundreds of neon clown faces suddenly flashed on, making Ben jump.   
“Why, you’re determined aren’t you?” said Zombozo, “And I thought those fools would hold you off. Oh well, HAHAHAHA! Now come and get me, if you don't die in my maze first hehehehehe…” the speaker made a click noise as it turned off.  
Pearl and Ben walked through the door… and were met with a maze full of mirrors, “Oh this will be easy, come on Ben” said Pearl, she took one step and was hit in the face with a mirror, “Augh, just stay close Ben- Ben?” She couldn’t see him.  
“I'm over here Pearl!” said Ben, she tried to get closer to him but was met with another mirror, “Augh… Ben, This is gonna be harder than it seems.”  
“Don’t worry Pearl,” said Ben, he took a deep breath, “I can use Wildmutt to smell around and find Zombozo, I’ll fight him alone…”  
“Good luck Ben!” Pearl called out.  
“Ok… ok I can do this,” He scrolled over to Wildmutt’s icon and smacked down on the watch, he transformed and could immediately smell where the Maze’s exit was. He ran as fast as he could, the scent getting stronger and stronger. He made it to the end and found a small box… he went over and sniffed it, and out popped a giggling clown doll, out of its mouth shot pepper spray, it’s scent blocked out Wildmutt’s sense of smell.   
“Don’t worry little doggy,” said the clown, “it will all be over soon.”  
What Zombozo didn’t know is that Wildmutt also had enhanced hearing, and he was attacked by the roaring beast. Zombozo tried pushing off the alien dog, but he was too strong. Zombozo pulled a knife from his sleeve and stabbed it into Ben’s side, he yelped and fell back, he went back to his feet and pulled the knife out with his teeth just before timing out and transforming back into his human form, and he finally got a good look at him.  
It took a minute for Ben to take in what he saw, a relatively short, fat man, with sickeningly pale green skin, dark, beady eyes, red tattered hair, yellow teeth sharpened to a point, a worn out jacket with a grey wilted flower attached, and long, thin arms.  
“Like what you see kiddo?” asked the clown.  
Ben couldn’t help but scream in fear, he fell backwards and pushed himself against the wall, he just couldn;t take his eyes off the corpse-like man in front of him. He winced as Zombozo drew a bit closer.  
“Why don't I show you what I’ve been working on…” he pulled a tassel rope that was hanging from the ceiling, and the platform they were standing on lowered into another room, in the center a giant machine filled with small glowing orbs, Zombozo stretched his arms and grabbed the machine and pulled himself closer, “You like it?”  
Ben shivered at the other end of the room unable to even open his mouth.  
Zombozo frowned, “Aw little hero is too scared,” he reached inside the machine and pulled one of the orbs out, inside was an image of Grandpa Max, laughing hysterically, “This is your grandfather right?” he reached in again and pulled out a few more, Connie, Greg, Garnet, Amethyst and two more, Gwen and Steven, “What’s the matter little hero? You’re even too scared to save your dear cousin and your best friend?”  
Ben’s fear slowly melted into rage, he got up and the omnitrix turned green, he walked toward Zombozo as he returned the orbs to the machine, “Let. Them. Go.” Ben demanded, he hit his watch and turned into Ghostfreak.  
“Oh no, a scary ghost,” Zombozo mocked, “What are you gonna do? Say boo?”  
“Close…” Ghostfreak rasped, he disappeared, Zombozo looked around and was surprised with a scratch on his face, he touched the wound and saw blood on his hand.   
“Ok little boy, time to come out and ACK-” Ghostfreak slammed his face to the ground and appeared before him.  
Zombozo stretched his arms out toward Ghostfreak, who slashed at them, revealing them to be false arms. Zombozo backed away, but his arms and legs were ensnared by black and white tentacles. Ghostfreak’s skin unfurled and revealed more and more tentacles, the skin on his face unfolded and revealed his skull face, “What’s the matter Zombozo? Scared of ghosts?” Zombozo shrieked. Ghostfreak brought his face close to his and said, “Boo.”  
Zombozo exploded in a cloud of confetti.  
Ben turned back into human, “Woah… did I do that?”  
Pearl ran over to Ben, gasping, “Ben, hah, I’m here I…” she noticed the confetti and remains of Zombozo, “What happened?”  
“I wish I knew…” said Ben, he walked over to the machine and pulled a giant switch, making all the spirits fly out and return to their bodies. Ben sighed, “Let’s… just get back to the RV, I'm wiped out.”


	9. Watchhunters

Out in the galaxy, bounty hunters get good business, if someone wants someone else gone, or imprisoned, bounty hunters are an easy way to get it done without dealing with various groups of intergalactic law enforcement.  
In the vast sea of Bounty hunters, if you want something done perfectly, (and if you have the cash to burn), you go to the two best. Tetrax, the skilled huntsman from Petropia, and And Bloodstone, a Gem who defected from Homeworld’s Regime.   
After generations of his world being controlled by Blue Diamond, Tetrax formed a small rebellion and tried to take back control of his world. He sought out a powerful conqueror to assist with the removal of the Diamonds, in return for his people’s most powerful weapon, the Horn of Sugilite, unfortunately, Tetrax was tricked, and all organic life on his world was eradicated.  
Years later, he made a name for himself as a Bounty Hunter in order to find the Horn of Sugilite and avenge his people. His searches lead him to the throne of the Incursean Empire, and their Emperor, who had just given the Horn to the leader of the planet Fulmas. Blinded by rage, Tetrax took the emperor’s life, cementing himself as the strongest of his people and a force to be reckoned with.  
Bloodstone never agreed with the ways of Homeworld and joined the Crystal Gems. After being caught shattering a Homeworld elite, she was exiled from the rebellion. It didn’t phase her, she knew that they wouldn’t understand. She was willing to stop Homeworld, no matter the cost. She was able to infiltrate the inside, attempting to prevent some colonization before it could start, but she lost hope. Every time she made any progress, Homeworld was constantly a step ahead of her.   
Without a way to take them down, Bloodstone gave up and decided that Bounty Hunting was a more practical use of her skills. She needed money if she was going to be outside of Homeworld’s regime. She quickly made a name for herself by taking out 60 high-level targets in under 30 seconds.  
...That being said, imagine their surprise when they found out they both were given the same job, by the most unlikely of customers, Yellow Diamond.  
Her instructions were clear, there’s a human who held the most powerful weapon in the known universe, the Omnitrix. This human had joined the Crystal Gems. The bounty hunters are to retrieve the Omnitrix and if they get in the way, destroy the Crystal Gems.  
“How much longer do we have until we get to Earth, Gluto?” Tetrax asked.  
The living pink ball of slime in the pilot’s seat made some vague sounds resembling communication.  
“Perfect, we’re right on schedule,” Tetrax responded, “Call up Bloodstone.”  
Gluto pressed some buttons and a hologram of Bloodstone appeared, “What do you need Tetrax,” the Gem demanded.  
“Just making sure you understand our agreement before we land on Earth, we both know the Omnitrix Wielder will be a powerful foe, so we need to work together, and we’ll split the earnings 50/50.”  
“Sounds good to me, as long as you don't try and double-cross me, you have no idea how many Petrosapiens I’ve taken out,” Bloodstone warned.  
“And you have no idea how many Gems I’ve shattered, Bloodstone,” Tetrax responded.  
There was a moment of dead silence between the two, eventually broken by Bloodstone, “I’ll see you on Earth."  
Tetrax’s ship loomed above Earth, Gluto was readying the ship for decent, “Where’s Bloodstone?” Tetrax asked.  
Gluto shrugged and made a sound.  
“I guess I’ll start without her, take us down, Gluto.”  
Gluto tapped some buttons and the ship was lowered, right over a city street in front of a diner, the people around were frozen in shock. Tetrax put on his suit, covering his whole body, and exited the ship, noticing the large crowd, he pulled out a blaster, “This doesn’t concern any of you, evacuate immediately.”   
People quickly left, the owners of the diner even abandoned their establishment. Left in silence, Tetrax began to walk around, but before he got very far, he heard the door to the diner swing open.  
“Yo guess how much free food I got!” Amethyst yelled. She looked around and saw Tetrax, “Uhhh, hi?”  
“Are you one of the crystal Gems?” he asked.  
“Uhhh, yeah? Whatchu want?”  
Tetrax took out his blaster and shot at her, disintegrating her food.  
“WHAT THE HECK DUDE? That was FREE”  
“Take me to the Omnitrix Wielder and I might spare you,” the bounty hunter threatened.  
“Oh ho ho ho no, you do not mess with my food, and then threaten me, you are going DOWN son!” she summoned her whip from her Gemstone and wrapped it around Tetrax, but he easily broke free. Infuriated, she curled into a ball and spin dashed into him, knocking him off balance.  
“I expected more from a Crystal Gem,” Tetrax taunted.  
“I can do this all day, buddy,” Amethyst retorted.  
Meanwhile, a few streets down…  
“Uh… dad? What’s that?” Steven said pointing to the ship landing from the sky.  
“Holy moly,” said Greg, “Uh, Garnet, Pearl, you might wanna look at this.”  
Garnet and Pearl both looked to the sky and gave each other worried looks.  
“Amethyst is over there…” said Pearl, “We need to help her!”  
“We’ll go with!” said Ben.  
“No!” said Garnet, “It’s too dangerous, Pearl and I will handle it.”  
“You can’t be serious,” said Gwen, “we’re more than capable-”  
“Please, Gwen,” said Pearl, “Just listen to Garnet, we’ll be back.”  
They rushed off to the location of the ship. Leaving the kids behind.  
“Perfect…” said Bloodstone, hiding in the trees.  
“Don’t worry kids, the gems will be fine,” said Max.  
“I’m not worried about them,” said Ben, “I just wish they would let us help, ya know?”  
“Garnet usually knows what’s best, Ben,” said Steven, “It’s good to trust her.”  
“Why should I? I like, just met her less than a month ago.”  
“She can see the future,” explained Steven.  
“What!?” said Ben and Gwen in unison.  
“Did we not tell you?” said Connie.  
“Sorry,” said Steven.  
“Yeah, she can,” said Bloodstone, jumping from the trees and landing in front of them, “But she’s not always accurate.”  
“What the, who are you!?” Ben yelled.  
“Calm down Ben!” said Steven, “She could be friendly, you have to treat strangers with respect,” Steven cleared his throat, “Hello ma’am, how may we help you today?”  
“I’m here to kill the kid in green and take his watch,” said Bloodstone, she knocked Steven out of the way, “Just stand back, it’ll be over soon.”  
Grandpa Max ran up to the Bounty Hunter and tried fighting her off, “Ben! Get out of here!”  
“Grandpa!” Ben slapped the watch, and turned into Diamondhead, just as Grandpa Max was thrown to the ground.  
“Oh, this should be interesting,” said Bloodstone, she pulled a Scythe from her Gemstone (cleverly hidden under her clothing) and pointed it toward Ben, “You’re about to be an easy paycheck, runt.”  
Ben fired a barrage diamonds from his hands, each one being sliced out of the air, reacting fast, Ben made a small pillar of diamond beneath Bloodstone, then immediately shattered it, making her lose her footing.  
Steven recovered from Bloodstone’s attack, “D-do you have a way to beat her Ben?” he asked.  
Ben gave a smug grin, “Yeah, I do,” he said with full confidence.  
“Really? You do?” Steven said, surprised.  
“Yep, I have one last card up my sleeve.”  
“What is it?” Steven said, with excitement.  
“Look at her legs, I used my diamonds to make her slip, rendering her legs useless!”  
“A-and your last card?”  
“I’ll use my own legs!”   
“Use your legs? How?”  
Ben spun around and sprinted like he never had before, “RUN STEVEN! RUN!”  
Bloodstone smirked, “This kid’s insane,” she ran after him at full speed.  
Amethyst was locked in an intense duel with Tetrax, “You can’t win,” he said, “Don’t you know who I am?”  
Amethyst kept furiously whipping him, “I do not! And I don't care!” she hit him on the head, knocking the helmet off his head, she got a glimpse of his face, “Diamondhead?” suddenly, she felt something run through her body. Tetrax had shot a diamond through her stomach, she gave him an angry look before she poofed into a cloud of smoke.  
Garnet and Pearl approached the ship, “Do you see her?” Pearl asked, just then, Tetrax kicked her Gemstone over to Pearl, she gasped.  
“Consider that a warning,” Tetrax said, “Hand over the Omnitrix wielder, or worse will happen.”  
“You leave him out of this!” Pearl said, “That Peridot from before, she must’ve sent him!”  
“We can’t let you hurt anyone from this planet, leave now,” Garnet commanded.  
Tetrax sighed, “Listen, ladies, I’m just doing my job, I just want the watch, the human will be fine as long as he goes along.”  
“That device is too powerful to be left in the wrong hands!” Pearl said, “Whatever you’re being paid it can’t be worth what will happen if someone with ill intent were to get their hands on it!”  
“At this point, I don’t care,” said Tetrax, “I’ve got a pretty stable job, just hand the human over.”  
Just then, Ben ran through, “Oh thank goodness!” Ben said, “Garnet, Pearl, some crazy hooded lady is chasing me and… why is there another Diamondhead?”  
Tetrax looked at Ben, and noticed the badge with the hourglass symbol on his chest, “N-no, it can’t be, you’re a child!”  
Bloodstone ran in, and knocked him to the ground, “Gotcha!”  
“Bloodstone, stop!” Tetrax yelled, “He’s just a kid!”  
“Don’t care,” she said, “I just want my money.”  
“Bloodstone…” said Garnet, “Is that you?”  
Bloodstone looked back at Garnet, “G-Garnet!? Shoot, I gotta get out of here!” she grasped onto Ben and warped off in a beam of light.  
Steven ran up to the group, he gasped for breath, “Wh-where’s Ben?” he noticed the purple gemstone in Pearl’s hand, “A-Amethyst?”   
“She probably took him to her ship,” said Tetrax, “I’ll help you find her and get him back.”  
“You were attacking us just a minute ago!” said Pearl, “Why should we trust you.”  
“I have boundaries,” Tetrax explained, “I don't go after kids or families… I just… I can’t, Yellow Diamond must’ve tried to trick me or just didn’t know.”  
“Y-Yellow Diamond!?” Pearl gasped.  
“Listen, I can track her ship, I’ll get your kid back, I promise,” Tetrax said.  
“I’ll come with!” said Steven.  
“Me too…” said Garnet, “If that’s the Bloodstone I know, I should be able to get through to her.”  
“Come on, get in my ship!” said Tetrax, they entered the monstrous ship, Tetrax pulled up a screen, “Gluto, track down Bloodstone’s ship!”   
The little alien pressed some buttons and an image appeared on Tetrax’s screen.  
“She hasn’t even left atmosphere!” said Garnet.  
“Go after her, now!” said Tetrax.  
Steven was just looking at Gluto in awe as they quickly took off, and flew straight toward Bloodstone’s ship.  
Within the ship, Ben was in human form and contained in a translucent cage, he tried pushing through to no avail.  
“Might as well quit it kid, you aren’t getting out of that any time soon,” said Bloodstone, “Its a tightly woven hard light containment unit, that stuff can hold anything from a Galvan to an Appoplexian.”  
“..I don’t know what those words mean,” said Ben.  
“Ugh, just shut up, if I could kill ya, I would, but I don’t wanna risk that thing either sending out a distress signal or, blowing up or something.”  
Ben raised an eyebrow, “I… doubt it does that…”  
“Please, just leave me alone ‘till we get to,” a light on her monitor turned on and beeped, “What the…” suddenly, the ship was shaken around and the power flicked on and off, including Ben’s cage. He slipped out, grabbing onto a support bar by the door of the ship.   
“Ugh, get back in there!” Bloodstone yelled.  
“I got her in a tractor beam,” said Tetrax, “I’ll try to contact her,” he tapped a button, in Bloodstone’s ship, the window in front displayed Tetrax’s face, “Bloodstone, hand the kid over!”  
“Oh, I see,” she said, “You want the cash to yourself?”  
“No, you idiot!” Tetrax yelled, “You took that kid from his family! You need to give him back!”  
“You think I care?” she scoffed, “I’m gonna get this reward and you aren’t getting in the way!”  
“We need to get in her ship!” said Garnet.  
Gluto made a noise.  
“No!” said Tetrax, “We can’t just do that!”  
“What did he say?” Steven asked.  
“He suggested we fly above her ship and drop you out through the cargo bay.”  
“So we have any better ideas?” Garnet asked.  
“...fine,” Tetrax meneuvered the ship above Bloodstone’s, “You two ready?”  
Steven had formed a bubble around him and Garnet, “Ready when you are Tetrax!” he said.  
“Good luck,” Tetrax flipped a switch and the door flew open, sucking Garnet and Steven out into Earth’s outer atmosphere. Garnet punched the inside oof the bubble, propelling it towards Bloodstone’s ship, it slammed into the side, blowing the outer door off. Garnet grabbed onto Steven and opened the inner door, and immediately shut it.  
An alarm went off, distracting Bloostone from Ben, in that moment he slapped his watch and turned into Upgrade, “Say goodbye to your spaceship, lady!” he turned into a puddle on the ground, “What the? I can’t merge with this!”  
“Jeez kid were you born yesterday? Galvanic Mechamorphs can’t merge with Gem technology,” she looked at her screen, activationg a camera, “Great, I should’ve known Garnet wouldn’t give up.”  
“You shouldn’t mess with the Crystal Gems, creep!” Ben teased.  
“Can it, kid,” she said, she grabbed his semi-solid body and threw it accross the room, and prepared to fight.  
Garnet busted down the door, “Bloodstone!”  
“Garnet, sure has been a while,” she teased, “Like the new form.”  
“I can’t believe you, you betray the Crystal Gems, leave for nearly 100 years, and now I find you back on Earth, kidnapping a human!”  
“I didn’t kill him did I?” she responded, “Listen Garn, I need the cash, I figured if Rose got what she wanted, us Gems would need a new way to survive, I just wanted a head start. But considering what I’ve heard and seen… you guys didn’t exactly win. All that’s left is you and Pearl and that quartz I saw Tetrax fight… I didn’t even see Rose with you guys.”  
Steven grimaced, Garnet approached her, “Bloodstone, listen-”  
Bloodstone blindly slashed at her with her Scythe, Steven jumped in front of Garnet and formed a sheild, the blade bounced back, she glared at them and then noticed the shield.  
“That pattern… that symbol. Rose? Is that you?”  
Steven dropped the shield, “I’m… her son.”  
“What?” she said, she removed her hood revealing her dark red hair and pink skin, “I didn’t even know that was possible… Why did she do it?”  
Garnet sighed, “Rose hated what Homeworld did to Earth, so instead of taking life from the planet, she sacrificed herself to give a life back.”  
“Heh, that’s Rose alright,” Bloodstone got up and looked to Steven, “You’re mom was a good Gem Steven.”  
“Yeah, I know, I kinda get told that alot,” he said.  
“You can have your kid back, its not like I ever listened to Yellow Diamond before,” she said, “Besides, it might be fun taking down her lackeys.”  
“You could always join the Crystal Gems again,” Garnet suggested.  
Bloodstone raised an eyebrow, “You kidding? After everything I did you still want me on your team?”  
“Now that homeworld knows about us, we could always use the help,” said Garnet.  
Gemstone smiled, “Thanks Garn, but I can’t accept. I like being a Bounty Hunter… but… I’ll stop kidnapping kids, and ya know, killing.”  
Garnet sighed, “Ok Bloodstone.”  
Bloodstone and Tetrax landed back on Earth, dropping Steven and Garnet off.  
“It’s gonna be interesting explaining this to Yellow Diamond,” said Tetrax.  
Bloodstone laughed, “She’s all talk, we’ll be fine.”  
“I hope to see you again!” said Steven.  
“It’s so weird,” said Ben, “I never thought I’d meet one of my Aliens for real.”  
Tetrax smiled warmly, “Maybe if we meet again, I could help you learn a few tricks with your Petrosapien form.”  
“Sounds great,” said Ben.  
Tetrax and Bloodstone boarded their ships and flew off. Just then Amethyst reformed, now with a new outfit, the star-shaped holes on her pants were now patches, and her tank top was no longer loose.  
She looked around groggily, “What did I miss?”  
Pearl patted her head, “Don’t worry, it wasn’t much.”  
“...what?”


	10. Sound of Violence

Steven and Connie tuned their instruments. Steven plucked a few strings and said, “One, two three,” he began strumming his ukelele, “The sun is bright our shirts are clean, we’re sitting next to an RV come on and share this jam with me!”  
Connie followed along and played her violin, “Peach or plum or strawberry, any kind is fine you see, come on and share this jam with me! I’ll do my best… to give this Jam the sweetness it deserves!”  
“And I’ll keep it fresh, I’m jamming on these tasty preserves!”  
Then at the same time, they sang, “Ingredients in harmony, we mix together perfectly, come on and share this jam with me!”  
“Y’all are weird,” said Ben.  
“Says the alien boy,” Connie teased.  
“How do you even do that?” He asked.  
“Do what?” Steven asked.  
“You guys just, come up with songs on the fly so easily,” Ben said, “You, Connie, the Gems, hows that even happen?”  
They both shrugged.  
Greg spoke up, “By the way, that reminds me!” he pulled out a sketchbook with a pretty intricate drawing of a blue lady surrounded by water, “I came up with some sick album art the other day, what do you think?”  
Steven grabbed it, “It’s… Lapis,” he touched the face of the drawing.  
“Woah careful with the delicate touches kiddo, I don't want it to get smudged.”  
Ben looked in awe, “Wooooaaah, THAT’S Lapis Lazuli?”  
“She didn’t look exactly like that,” Steven responded.  
“I even got a title track in the works!” Greg grabbed his electric guitar and began strumming, but with no sound, “Ah whoops, plugged it into video instead of audio,” He took the cord and plugged it into the other port, “remember Steven, video killed the audio star!”  
Steven blinked, “I have no idea what that means.”  
Greg chuckled, “That's okay, you leave the details to me. When you're a one-man-band you got to know how to do it all lyrics, graphic design, forum moderation, but for me, it was all about the audio. Anyways, let’s get this jam started!” he played his guitar, “Oh she was a riptide queen and she was SUPER MEAN-” Steven cut him off.  
“Woah, dad, hold the phone, now pass the phone to me,” Greg handed him the guitar, “Lapis wasn’t mean she just wanted to go home, how about this instead,”  
Steven played a more somber tune, “She was trapped in a mirror and it couldn’t be clearer. She wanted to leave this place and get herself back to space… and dad you may think she’s a criminal, but her friendship came through subliminal… Lapis Lazuli, you fled into the bottom of the sea, Lapis Lazuli… you were so mad but then you came around to me…”  
Ben was awestruck, but then snapped out of it, “See? How the heck do you do that?”  
“We just have… music in our hearts,” Steven said.  
“...lame,” said Ben, he suddenly heard rustling in the bushes behind him, he squinted, and saw some kind of pink beast, “...hero time baby…” he slapped the watch, and tuned into Wildmutt, he growled and pounced toward the Pink Monster, it fought back by pushing Ben away with a powerful growl, it jumped out of the bushes and revealed itself to be a majestic pink lion.  
Hearing the commotion, Steven, Connie, and Greg ran over to see what was happening.  
“Lion!” Steven ran between them, “Stop! Majestic creatures shouldn’t battle!!”  
Ben snarled, and the lion rubbed up against Steven, Ben gave a confused whine.  
“Ben, this is my pet lion, his name is Lion,” Steven pets him, “He’s magic and he can teleport and stuff… he usually shows up for my magical destiny stuff.”  
Ben turned back to human, “So… why is he here now?”  
“I dunno…” Steven turned to Lion, “What are ya here for boy?” Lion grabbed steven in his mouth and threw him up on his back, “I guess we’re going somewhere,” Lion roared loudly and a portal opened, Lion ran toward the portal, Ben quickly grabbed on as they ran through.  
They landed on a beach, Ben groaned, “That… was a mistake… what’s that sound?”  
A dull yet droning sound came from an area beyond a cliffside.  
“That’s coming from the Temple!” Steven said, “Let’s hurry!” they rode Lion to the end of the Beach, and were met with a large, weathered statue of a 6 armed woman, holding a house in its lap. The noise was getting louder as they approached the house. They entered and were nearly deafened by the howling coming from the house.  
Inside were Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, holding a strange stone which is where the sound was emanating from.  
“Steven?” Pearl yelled, “Why are you here?”  
“Lion brought me!” he yelled back, “What’s going on with that wailing stone?”  
“It just went nuts outta nowhere!” Amethyst yelled, “I WANT IT TO STOP NOW!”  
“I have an idea,” said Garnet, she put a bubble around it, the sound was muffled, but then the bubble grew and popped.  
“IT’S WORSE NOW!” Amethyst yelled.  
Steven ran up and shoved his arm in the wailing stone’s hole. It stopped for a moment, but then the sound started to come from Steven’s mouth. Garnet pulled Steven’s arm from the stone and shoved pillows into the hole. The sound was quieted.  
“WHAT THE HECK!” Ben yelled.  
“Sorry Ben,” said Pearl, “You shouldn’t have been dragged into this.”  
“What is that thing?” he asked.  
Pearl sighed, “It’s a wailing stone, its an old piece of Gem technology that was used for communication, but all of them were shut down. Except for this one, apparently, and we have no way of seeing what the message says.”  
“I GOT AN IDEA!” said Steven, he hopped onto the Warp Pad and teleported away, and then returned with Greg.   
After explaining the situation to him, Greg went to get his van and drove it outside the temple.   
“I can't believe it, you need help with sound stuff!? You've come to the right guy!” Greg laughed and pulled out a large glowing blue microphone, “The Lubitz Cardioid Condenser 680! It's got warm tone without too much top end.”  
“Plus it’s got a big honkin’ sponge thingy,” Amethyst pointed out.  
Greg removed the cushion from the wailing stone and replaced it with the Microphone. He started twisting dials and flipping switches, a loud screetching sound came from the speakers.  
“THAT’S WORSE,” yelled Amethyst, “THAT’S SO MUCH WORSE!!”  
“Aah! I’m sorry,” Greg said.  
“You can do it, dad! You’re the audio daddy-o!” Steven cheered.  
Greg looked at his equipment and back at Steven, “Yeah!” he messed with the dials some more and it began to make different sounds, “This is starting to sound like a sick beat, I gotta record this.”  
“Greg, focus!” Pearl said.  
“Right sorry,” He started turning things up, it began sounding like something recognizable, and then the van’s battery died, “Ah shoot, sorry guys…”  
Pearl sighed, “ Should’ve figured as much.”  
“Wait, hold on!” said Greg, “If I can jump-start the van I can maybe-”  
“Greg, it’s nice that you wanted to help, but we have real problems to deal with,” she removed the microphone and replaced it with the cushion, and jumped off to the temple.  
“Sorry G-man,” said Amethyst, she jumped to the Temple after Pearl.  
“It will all work out,” said Garnet, following her teammates.  
“Dang,” said Ben, “The gems are kinda cold.”  
“That’s not true!” said Steven, “They may have cold exteriors but they’re really nice… usually…”  
“...they’ve been like that since I met them,” Greg said, “I’m… kinda used to it,” he took a deep breath and grabbed his acoustic guitar and began strumming.  
“I could’ve tamed you I could’ve shown, that I can depose you from your loud throne, but in the end, I wasn’t good enough. I just showed the gems that I ain’t got the stuff! Oh, Wailing Stone! I tried so hard to fly but I was thrown. Oh, Wailing Stone! I gotta tell the Gems ‘cuz they should know… have a little, have a little, have a little faith in me, I wanted to help. You know I have a little, have a little, have a little expertise! I know it’s not much, but if it could come in handy… I’d wanna be there… I think so highly of you, it just isn’t fair… that you have so little faith,” he looked down at his guitar and sighed, “Eh, that’s a B-side.”  
Steven frowned, “Dad, I hate seeing you like this, there must be something else we can try!”  
Greg slumped down, “Eh, I don't know Steven. I mean, sound and stuff like this, this stuff's my whole world, and if I can't figure this out then, maybe it isn't even sound.”  
“Well if it isn’t sound then what could it be,” Steven paced back and forth he looked around, and focused on the old TV in his father’s Van, “Wait, whaaaaaaat DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!”  
“I’m not that far away Steven.”  
“What if” Said Steven.  
Greg raised an eyebrow, “I don’t follow.”  
“What if it’s…” Steven made a motion with his hands.  
“Something else I’m not good at?”  
Steven pointed at his eyes.  
Greg squinted, and gasped, “Oh my days it’s video!”  
Steven jumped up excitedly, he turned around to Ben and pointed at him, “Can you fix the van?”  
Ben smiled and used upgrade to merge with his Van, while Steven ran and got the Gems.  
In mere moments, Greg set everything back up, now hooking everything up to the video input on the TV, Steven and the Gems stared intently, Upgrade’s head popped out of the RV to look.  
Sounds began to come from the TV, and soon a blue humanoid was visible.  
“Lapis?” said Steven.  
Her voice came through, “...Steven!”  
Greg smiled, “Yes! I did it!”  
Pearl’s jaw dropped, “I can’t believe my eyes.”  
“Quiet everyone!” Garnet commanded.  
“I hope you're able to hear this. There's a Gem looking for you, she even knew your name. I don't know how! I didn't tell her, I swear! She's on her way to Earth, and she's not alone… they told this alien. He’s not a Gem and I’ve never seen him before, he talked about this thing called the Omnitrix. Steven, Homeworld is not the way it used to be. Everything here is so advanced! I can't even understand it. There's no way anything on Earth can stand up to it. Please, don't put up a fight, It'll only lead to devastation!-” the TV returned to static.  
Pearl covered her mouth, “It’s Peridot… she must be talking about Peridot!”  
“They’re looking for us!” said Amethyst.  
“Lapis sounded so unhappy…” said Steven.  
Ben unmerged with the Van, “What are we supposed to do? Is earth gonna be invaded?”  
Garnet stood up and clenched her fist.  
“Garnet, what are we gonna do?” Amethyst said.  
Garnet took a deep breath, and smiled, “Woo!”  
Everyone looked at her in shock.  
“We did it,’ she said bluntly.  
“What?” Pearl asked.  
“We got the message.”  
“But-” Amethyst started.  
“It’s got,” said Garnet through clenched teeth. She walked over to Gren and held out her hand, Greg looked at it for a moment and shook it, “Thank you Greg, your assistance was greatly appreciated.”  
Greg teared up, “Th-thank you!”  
Garnet turned to Steven, and Ben, “Let’s get you two back on your road trip, in the morning you’re headed to South Rushmore, I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.”  
Steven smiled. “Yay! I can’t wait!”  
Using the warp pad, Steven, Ben, and Greg returned to their RVs.  
...Later that night, Garnet and Pearl had a discussion with Max.  
“Do you have any idea when they might come?” Said Max.  
“No,” said Pearl, “Lapis only talked about how some Gems and an alien creature that she didn’t recognize are planning to come to Earth.”  
“This is bad,” said Max, “Plumber activity is low around Homeworld since they have no jurisdiction there, but rumors have been spreading that someone took over for Pink Diamond after… after what Rose did…”  
Garnet and Pearl tensed up.  
“We just have to be ready,” said Garnet, “And protect Steven and Ben at all costs.”  
“I’m not worried about their safety,” said Max, “I’m worried about what they’ll see and… how it would affect them, they’re just kids, but their powers put them in a difficult situation.”  
Pearl sighed, “I’m sure Rose never wanted this for Steven.”  
The meeting dispersed. Awaiting the battle they’ll soon face.  
Next time, the season finale; Invasion from Homeworld


	11. Season 1 Finale: Attack From Homeworld

Quick note: This was originally planned to be a fully voice acted motion comic but, due to some personal issues and some plans falling through, I scrapped that idea, but since the script was finished I just decided to release this as the Season Finale. Thank you all for reading, and thanks to all my friends who helped make this project what it is! I couldn’t have done it without any of you. This project has been really fun and some Bizzare things are coming soon for the second season! Love you all!  
-Taylor

[Scene: Rustbucket, early morning. Ben is sleeping on one of the Bunk Beds]  
Ben’s tossing and turning in his bed, Vilgax’s voice echoing through his mind, he wakes up in a cold sweat, screaming.  
Gwen: Ugh… Ben, some of us are trying to sleep here.  
Max: What’s wrong Ben?  
Ben: It was that vision again! That freaky alien, he said something like, “You can’t hide much longer… Tennyson.”  
Max: gasps You know what, we’re gonna hit the road now.  
Gwen: What? Grandpa, it’s 3 in the morning!  
Max: taking out his phone Uh, we gotta beat the morning rush he calls Greg   
Greg: (Over the Phone) Huh? What is it, Max?  
Max: We’re heading down to South Rushmore. Now.  
Greg: Jeez, ok I’m up, I’m up. He starts his van and drives off  
[Scene: Greg and Max’s RVs make a stop in South Rushmore, Mt. Rushmore in the distance]  
Max: Well Kids, we’re here! South Rushmore!  
Ben: (Sarcastically) Wow, great.  
Gwen: (Sarcastically) Truly the pinnacle of our road trip.  
Max: Groans What’s wrong with South Rushmore? They have Mt. Rushmore!  
Ben: Sorry Grandpa, but after seeing so many cool monsters and Gem Temples and things like that, rock faces seem pretty tame in comparison.  
Max: I suppose that’s understandable.  
Gwen: (Reading through her spellbook) Don’t feel bad Grandpa, you just haven’t gone on crazy adventures like the rest of us.  
Max: (Chuckling) Yeah, I suppose…  
[Greg’s RV parks next to the Rust Bucket]   
Amethyst: (Sarcastically) Oh wow, this has gotta be the coolest place yet.  
Pearl: Amethyst, do you realize that this is one of the most impressive Human-made structures on Earth?  
Amethyst: We literally live in one just like these, and it's actually like, a whole body and not just a giant head.  
Steven: Well I think it’s cool!  
Connie: Yeah Mt. Rushmore is cool!   
Max: See? Connie gets it!  
Connie: You know, if you don’t compare it to everything else we’ve seen up until this point.  
Max: Ol’ Rushmore just can’t catch a break  
An armored van rushes past them with police cars following close behind  
Ben: gasps Alright! Time for some action! It’s hero time! He smacks his watch  
Crystals run up Ben’s arm from the Omnitrix, it covers the rest of his body and he becomes Diamondhead.  
Diamondhead: Diamondhead!  
Ben and Steven ran after the car, the scene pans out into space, and into a huge, hand-shaped spaceship  
An alarm goes off, Vilgax’s Pearl, Jasper, and Peridot's attention was drawn toward it, Lapis sat in the corner, shaking, and a shadowy figure sat in a throne in the center of the room  
Vilgax: The Omnitrix has activated again, Pearl, pinpoint the location!  
Vilgax’s Pearl: Yes, lord Vilgax! She inserts her hands into the control panel and here eyes are filled with code and information Ah it’s in the human settlement known as… Keystone, South Rushmore!  
Vilgax: Finally… the Omnitrix will be mine!  
Peridot: glaring at Vilgax That’s what you think…  
Scene cuts back to Steven and Diamondhead, a wall of crystals formed in front of the armored car, one of the thugs inside stepped out with a large gun, aiming it at the alien  
Diamondhead: You must not know what you’re dealing with!  
The thug scowled and charged up the laser.  
Diamondhead: yawns Gosh even the bad guys in this state are boring! He fires some crystals at the weapon, making it explode.  
Another thug snuck behind Ben and tried shooting him with a smaller blaster, but was intercepted by Steven, who blocked the shot with his shield and threw it right at the Thug’s head, knocking him out.  
Steven walked over to the two knocked out Thugs and healed their wounds, Ben transformed back to human just as Max drove the rustbucket up to pick the boys up.  
Ben: raising his arms in the air Woo! That was awesome!  
Steven: chuckling Yeah it was cool! I wonder how they got those weapons though.  
Ben: leaning back on the Rustbucket’s passenger seat Pssh, who cares, that’s a job for the police.   
The Rustbucket regroups with the others, Ben, Steven, and Max jump out  
Greg: Steven! Are you ok!? You didn’t get hurt, did you?  
Steven: I’m fine dad, don’t worry! I’m tough!  
Greg: (Smiling) You sure are Schtu-ball.  
A group of drones, similar to the ones that attacked on the first day of summer, begin flying toward the group.  
Ben: Aw, man! These things again!?  
Pearl: puts her hand on her chin We destroyed all of these last time. How are there more?  
Max: I think there's more of an issue here!  
As the Drones grew closer, it was shown that they are much bigger than they were before, about the size of a small car  
Garnet: We need to protect this city!  
Ben’s Omnitrix beeps and glows green  
Ben: I don’t care how much bigger these things are, I’m gonna turn them into scrap, It’s Hero Time!  
Ben turns into Heatblast  
Heatblast: Humungo- I-I mean Heatblast!  
Ben unleashes a hurricane of Flames from his arms at one of the approaching Drones, but it doesn’t even slow it down, Ben stares at it in shock.  
Garnet began punching a Drone until it fell and crashed into the ground. Another drone fired a Laser at her but Steven Protected Garnet with his shield. Garnet gave Steven a thumbs up and jumped to another drone  
Pearl and Amethyst backed into each other, they performed a quick dance and formed Opal and began firing Bow shots at the Drones, knocking a few out of the air.  
Connie was slashing at Drones with her sword, while Gwen frantically looked through her Spellbook  
Gwen: This looks promising, Her voice echoes a bit Adfishio Potentia!  
Blue streams of Magic flowed from her hand, destroying a Drone  
Gwen: Woah…  
In the midst of the chaos, the clouds in the sky part a massive green hand appears and grows closer to the ground  
Opal: Oh no She unfuses  
Pearl: A Gem warship!  
Steven: Like… from Homeworld?  
Garnet: Lapis warned us but… I didn’t see it coming this soon!  
The warship flips over so it’s palm is up, and lands in the middle of the street. A white bubble comes from the palm and moves up to the top of the hand, the bubble disappears and Vilgax’s Pearl comes out from it  
V. Pearl: Attention Earth dwellers!  
The group is lined up side to side in battle-ready poses, all except Steven who looks bewildered  
Steven: (whispering) two Pearls?  
V. Pearl: Prepare yourselves for the awesome might of Lord Vilgax!  
Another, bigger bubble appears and moves up behind the Pearl. Out of it comes Vilgax, Peridot, and Jasper, gripping Lapis Lazuli tightly.  
Peridot: That’s them, they’re the ones who were breaking the warps and destroying my Robonoids! Now, do you see why I needed help?  
Jasper: So this is what remains of her army… She turns to Lapis and Peridot And you say neither of you saw Rose Quartz?  
They both shake their heads  
Vilgax: That doesn’t matter, we’re here to check on the Status of the Cluster he glares toward Heatblast And to retrieve the Omnitrix  
Heatblast: What are you starin’ at seafood breath?  
The Homeworld Gems and Vilgax jump down to the street  
Pearl: B-Ben, I really don’t think it's the best idea to anger him, you don’t know who you’re dealing-  
Max: Touch my Grandson and you die Vilgax!  
Vilgax: Turns his attention toward Max. Tennyson… what a pleasant surprise.  
Max: You’re supposed to be dead!   
Vilgax: I should say the same about you. Aren’t humans supposed to have pitifully short lifespans?  
Heatblast: I’ve heard enough, I’m gonna fry this fish!  
Heatblast propels himself toward Vilgax, who pulls out a destabilizer and shoves it into the Omnitrix symbol on Heatblast’s chest, causing Ben to revert back to human and collapse to the ground  
Steven tried to help Ben but Garnet pushed him back   
Jasper: Peridot, fire at those traitors  
Peridot forms a screen using her limb enhancers, She uses another one of her fingers to tap a button the Warship points at the Crystal Gems and charges a laser blast  
Garnet: Steven run!  
Steven: No! He stands in front of her. I’m a Crystal Gem too!   
The warship fires and Steven Summons a giant shield to protect his family. Jasper’s eyes widen  
Jasper: That shield! You… you have the power of Rose Quartz!  
The shield disappears   
Lapis: Don’t hurt him!  
Jasper: You knew about this didn’t you?  
Lapis: It wasn’t relevant to the mission!  
Jasper: Yellow Diamond needs to see this… She turns her attention back to Steven You know Rose, I fought your army back in the war. I admired your tactics but this? This pathetic body and your army being reduced to an overcooked runt, a Pearl, and… She motions toward Garnet This shameful display?  
Garnet tightly clenches her fist and summons her weapon, she jumps up and punches Jasper, who blocks with her weapon, a Crash Helmet. Jasper pulls out a Destabizer of her own and jabs it into Garnet, causing yellow lines to run all around her, her body began to fall and break apart, Garnet gave a distressed look to Steven as she Poofed  
Pearl and Amethyst both cried out in horror, Steven was frozen with shock.  
Jasper: Lifting Steven up by his Shirt I may not understand what you’re planning Rose, but take a look around you, whatever is, it’s over. Your armies are destroyed, and we captured your Omnitrix wielder. You failed! She headbutts Steven, knocking him unconscious. Heh, pathetic. Let’s go.  
The invaders are teleported back onto the Warship with Ben, Steven, and the Crystal Gems taken as prisoners  
Gwen: Grandpa! We need to help them!  
Connie: Who was that Squid guy? He didn’t look like a Gem.  
Greg: There’s… a lot to unpack here…  
Max: I’ll explain it all later, we need to get to Mt. Rushmore!  
They speed over to Mt. Rushmore, and arrived in under an hour, they approached a sign that read DO NOT ENTER  
Gwen: Uhh Grandpa, I don’t think tourists are supposed to go here.  
Max: We aren’t tourists. We’re visitors He presses a button under the dashboard and the Rustbucket descends into a futuristic, pure white room   
Gwen: Where… are we?  
Max: Plumber headquarters  
Gwen and Connie both gave each other confused looks, Greg just slumped down in his chair  
Max: This may take a while…  
[Scene: Inside the Gem Warship, Steven is passed out in a cell, Ben is in Vilgax’s Chamber within the ship, completely restrained.]  
Steven is woken up by a distant singing, he looks around and sees he’s being held in his cell with an energy wall, he touches it, it only really tickles, he goes through the wall and shudders.  
Steven: Ok, I just need to figure out where I am, and go find everyone else! He remembers Ben being knocked out and Garnet being Poofed and gasps.  
Steven rushes down the halls looking at the empty cells he sees a red Gem, sitting in her cell and crying.  
Steven: Hi… are you ok?  
Ruby: Gasps and starts panting. She punches the wall and causes the room to shake a little Great! This is just PERFECT!  
Steven: So… Do you need help?  
Ruby: No! I mean, ugh go away!  
Steven: Oh… ok he begins to walk away  
Ruby: Wait! You’re out! But how?  
Steven puts his hand near the energy wall  
Ruby: No wait!  
Steven’s hand goes through it with ease. The area below it opening-up.  
Ruby: What the- she touches it and retracts her hand as it deforms what’s goin on...  
He stands in the doorway and holds his arms to make a way for Ruby to exit   
Steven: Voice vibrating Come on in its safe!  
Ruby walks through, the singing can be heard again  
Ruby: Sapphire… I need to go find her!  
Steven: Is Sapphire your friend? I’m looking for my friends too, we can look together!  
Ruby: Sure whatever, let’s go!  
She runs through the halls looking in the cells, Steven following close behind  
Steven: My name’s Steven by the way! What's yours?  
Ruby: Quiet! She grabs her head I can’t see… she looks around and runs left  
Ruby notices a blue gem and gasps, only to be disappointed when she sees that it was just Lapis  
Ruby: Oh… it’s only you  
Steven: Lapis! Here, let me get you out!  
Lapis: No! Leave me here!  
Steven: What?  
Lapis: I deserve this… I endangered you and your friends. She curls up in the corner  
Sapphire’s starts singing again  
Ruby: We don’t have time for this!  
Steven: I’ll come back for you Lapis. I promise.  
Ruby and Steven keep running, Steven stops as he sees a window, he looks out and sees Earth  
Steven: Woah… he looks around. Hello? He runs in the direction he remembers Ruby going, he sees Jasper and Peridot and ducks out of view   
Peridot: We can’t leave yet!  
Steven peeks out to spy on them  
Peridot: The whole point of this mission was to check on the cluster and get the Omnitrix! We only did one of those so far!  
Sapphire continues singing  
Jasper: Punches the wall STOP SINGING! She turns to Peridot Rose Quartz takes priority, set a course for Homeworld. Jasper walks away  
Peridot:(grumbling) Go to Earth they said, it’ll be easy they said. She walks off, and then looks around to make sure no one can see her, she pulls up a screen on her Limb Enhancers, it shows the Omnitrix symbol with a loading screen almost full Perfect. With this I can make my own…  
Steven approaches the Blue Gem’s cell  
Steven: (Whispering) Hi, I like your song! Are you Sapphire?  
Sapphire: You escaped! Steven puts his hand in the field Of course. He makes another gap in the field and She walks through Thank you Steven!  
Steven: You’re welcome!   
Ruby: (Far away) Sapphire!  
Sapphire: Ruby! She turns to Steven Come on! She grabs his hand and speeds off  
Scene cuts to a dark room, Ben being held by yellow energy in a circular containment unit  
Ben: wakes up Wh-where am I? He struggles to get free  
Vilgax: Finally. You’re awake.   
Ben: Let me out of here you freak!  
Vilgax: Insults will get you nowhere, human he pulls out a large tool, he begins charging it when Jasper bursts in Can’t you see I’m busy?  
Jasper: Rose Quartz has escaped!   
Vilgax: You were the one who felt it was so important to capture her! She couldn’t have gotten far!   
Jasper: Ugh fine, and make your extraction quick, we’re headed to homeworld soon.  
Jasper leaves, Vilgax turns around and faces Ben  
Ben: Heh, you wouldn’t consider talking this out… would you?  
[Scene cuts to Max, Greg, Connie, and Gwen in the Blumber base, Max in the middle of explaining everything to the kids]  
Max: The Plumbers are an intergalactic police force, and until recently, we were able to keep aliens secret from Earth. And now, I’m hoping they can help us get Ben and the Gems back.  
Gwen: Honestly, I’d be more surprised but considering everything we’ve seen this summer…  
Greg: You should’ve seen my face when Rose first explained this all to me.  
The elevator finishes descending, Max walked through a hallway of drawers and went to a section labeled “Tennyson” he tapped a button and the drawer opened and revealed a cannon, Max effortlessly pulled it out.  
Max: I used this old thing the first time I fought Vilgax, it’s still Locked on to his DNA signature  
Connie: What is it?  
Max: A tachyon cannon.   
[The scene cuts back to Steven and Sapphire rushing through the halls]  
They make a sudden stop, Steven dizzy from going so fast. Ruby sees Sapphire from across the room.  
Sapphire: Ruby!  
Ruby: Sapphire!  
They run into the center of the room, Steven following close behind. The gems hug each other, Ruby brushes Sapphire’s hair away showing one eye.  
Ruby: Are you ok? Did they hurt you?  
Sapphire: I’m fine, what about you?  
Ruby: Who cares about me!?  
Sapphire: I do!  
They kiss and begin dancing and laughing, they glow brightly, their red and blue light combine into purple color, their 2 forms become one tall and familiar shape, the light dims and reveals Garnet!  
Garnet: Laughing Steven!  
Steven: Garnet!? You’re a fusion!?  
Garnet: Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t want you meeting us like this.  
Steven: Well… did I make a good first impression?  
Garnet: Oh Steven, we already love you.  
Jasper can be heard angrily yelling   
Garnet: Steven, go and find the others!  
Steven: But I don't know- Garnet kisses him on the forehead Steven gasps Future vision!  
As Jasper enters, Steven leaves, Jasper sees the fusion and groans  
Jasper: Great, you’re out. And you’ve fused again? Why? Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak gems stronger. Quit embarrassing yourselves, I’ve seen what you really are!  
Garnet: Chuckles No you haven’t!  
[Scene cuts back to Ben and Vilgax]  
Vilgax: Finally, after all these years, the Omnitrix is mine! The device nears Ben’s arm, but the Omnitrix emits a pulse of power from it, he gets thrown back Impossible! He regains his footing Curse that crafty old man...  
Yellow Energy erupts from the Omnitrix, as Ben is turned into Ghostreak  
Ghostfreak: What!? I didn’t even touch it!  
Vilgax: No! The Destabilizer must have tampered with the Omnitrix! He gets up to attack Ben  
Ghostfreak: Phases through the containment unit and goes invisible Can’t catch what you can't see! The Omnitrix beeps and Ben transforms again   
Greymatter: What on earth!? Vilgax stomps near Ben, he leaps out of the way It seems my device has been damaged! My DNA has been randomized and I cannot control when or what I become, this is quite the predicament! He scans the room I know! He latches to the wall and begins to climb, as Vilgax searches for him I can get at a high vantage point above my opponent’s head and when I become another form I’ll have the advantage! Oh ho ho, I even impress myself! He makes it onto the ceiling above Vilgax. Prepare yourself brute, for even I do not know my next move! the Omnitrix Beeps and Ben transforms into Humungousaur and falls on him, shaking the whole ship.  
Humungousaur: Gets up Ya like that Squidface? Well there's more where that- Ben was cut off by a powerful laser blast to the chest, launching him through the wall Ben groans  
Vilgax: You honestly think that could phase me? I’ve taken down an army of Vaxasaurian Warriors before I took their planet! You think one can stop me? Let alone a runt!?  
Humungousaur: Runt? Don’t make me laugh, I’m HUMUNGOUSAUR! He reels back and punches Vilgax in the face, knocking him off balance, the Omnitrix Beeps again and Ben becomes Fasttrack  
Fasttrack: See ya later! He zooms off  
Vilgax: Don’t think you’ve won, child…  
Fasttrack: Running through the halls, What am I gonna do, I gotta find the Gems! If they’re even in this weird place, I-  
Ben and Steven collide   
Steven: Ben! You’re ok!  
Fasttrack: Steven! Are the rest of the Gems here?  
Steven: Yeah, and boy I have I got something crazy to tell you, b-but we need to find Amethyst and Pearl!  
Fasttrack: Picks up Steven I’ll help!   
They burst off at high speeds, as the music starts up, the scene cuts back to Garnet and Jasper, Garnet begins signing  
Garnet: This is Garnet  
Back together  
And I’m never going down at the hands of the likes of you because I’m so much better  
and every part of me is saying “Go Get Her!”  
The gems begin circling around the room, Jasper pulls out a Gem destabilizer  
The two of us aren’t gonna follow your rules  
Come at me without any of your fancy tools  
Let’s go just me and you  
Let’s go just one on two  
Garnet summons her visor and Jasper charges toward her  
Go ahead and try to hit me if you’re able  
Can’t you see that my relationship is stable?  
I can see you hate the way we intermingle  
but I think you’re just mad cuz you’re single!  
Garnet gracefully dodges Jasper’s attacks, taunting and infuriating her  
And you’re not gonna stop what we’ve made together  
We are gonna stay like this forever  
If you break us apart we’ll just come back newer  
And we’ll always be twice the gem that you are  
Garnet disarms Jasper and snaps the destabilizer in half, the Gems summon their weapons and prepare to clash,   
I am made, o-o-o-o-o-f   
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
as she sings the scene cuts to Ben and Steven finding Amethyst and Pearl. They head to the control bridge and encounter Peridot, she pulls the Gem Destabilizer on her but was caught by Steven, who doesn’t poof and pulls it from her hands  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
Garnet punches Jasper in the face, she goes in for another hit but Jasper catches her arm and flails her to the ground. Cracking the floor, Meanwhile Amethyst tied up Peridot with her Whip, Pearl ready at the controls  
Peridot: Don’t touch that! You clods don’t know what you’re doing!  
Amethyst: You got this Pearl!  
Pearl: Pulls a Plumber’s Badge from her Gem, Max, this is Pearl, I’m going to land the ship near the temple, just in case.  
Cuts to the Plumber Base   
Max: How are we gonna get all the way to Beach City?  
Lion appears and bumps into Max  
Max: That’ll work  
Steven looks into a screen next to Pearl seeing Garnet and Jasper’s fight. Garnet punches Jasper into the ceiling, she Spindashes at her and knocks Garnet through the floor and into the Engine room, Garnet gets up, visibly damaged from their fight.  
Garnet: This is who we are  
This is what I am  
And if you think you can stop me then you need to think again  
Jasper glares at Garnet, unphased, Garnet gets up and kneels on the ground and slowly gets up  
Because I am a feeling  
And I will never end  
And I won’t let you hurt my planet  
And I won’t let you hurt my friends!  
She resummons her Gauntlets and gets into a battle-ready pose  
Go ahead and try to hit me if you’re able  
Can’t you see that my relationship is stable  
I know you think I’m not something you’re afraid of

Cuz you think that you’ve seen what I’ve made of  
Garnet rapidly punches Jasper, each hit being blocked by Jasper’s helmet, Jasper deals a powerful blow to Garnet but she quickly recovers, she jumps at Jasper and smashes her fists into her temples, shattering Jasper’s visor and making Jasper reel back in pain  
But I am even more than the two of them  
Everything they care about is what I am  
I am their fury  
I am their patience  
I am a conversation  
Jasper growls and spin dashes again, Garnet dodges and Jasper turns around, she collides with Garnet, she catches her  
I am made, o-o-o-o-of  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
And it’s stronger than you  
She hurls her into the Power Source of the ship, it cracks and overflows with power, Garnet nearly escapes as the power source explodes  
O-o-o-o-of  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
Lo-o-o-o-ove  
And it’s stronger than you!  
Amidst the chaos, Peridot makes it thru an escape pod, Ben turns into Diamondhead and fires crystals at her, but she gets launched to Earth. The Gems run out of the escape room and run into Garnet  
Amethyst, Pearl, Steven, Ben: Garnet!  
Garnet: This ship is going down!  
Steven: What about Lapis?  
Garnet: There’s no time!  
Vilgax: turns a corner and shows up behind Garnet No time indeed.  
Vilgax grabs Garnet and throws her into the rest of the group, causing them all to fall to the ground, Ben turns into Overflow  
Overflow: You’re all washed up Tentacle Face! He fires an intense stream of water at him, Vilgax holds his gauntlet in front of him and the stream of water is deflected off of him  
Vilgax: I should’ve killed you when I had the chance  
Overflow: I should’ve run when I had the chance  
Vilgax’s eyes glow a bright red, he fires at the Group but Steven deflects it  
Vilgax: Stop delaying the inevitable, boy  
Ben becomes Stinkfly  
Stinkfly: Quit bugging us! He fires slime at Vilgax  
Vilgax: Whipes the slime from his suit I grow tired of this.   
Ben turned into Wildmutt. Vilgax dashes toward Ben, the room growing increasingly hotter as they enter earth’s Atmosphere, Vilgax pins Ben down, trying to pry the Omnitrix from Wildmutt’s leg, electricity flowing all around them, Vilgax stops as he feels a sharp pain in his arm  
Amethyst: reeling her whip back Leave our Ben alone!  
Pearl Tosses a spear at Vilgax’s other arm, freeing Ben, who flies over to them, the room becomes overwhelmingly hot, Steven forms a bubble around him, Ben and the Gems, as they collide with the Earth  
Max Greg Gwen and Connie all come through Lion’s Portal, Max hops off and aims the cannon around looking for Vilgax  
Gwen: Ben! Steven! Where are you?  
Connie: Garnet, Amethyst Pearl!   
A pink bubble emerges from the rubble, it disappears and everyone inside was unharmed, Ben shifted into Upgrade.  
Garnet: Patting Steven’s head Good job  
Steven: Chuckles and then gasps Garnet! You’re a fusion!  
Upgrade: What!?  
Amethyst: You met Ruby and Sapphire!?  
Pearl: Oh no! Garnet your plan! We were gonna show you on your birthday!  
Steven: That’s ok! You can still show me and I’ll act like I’m surprised!  
Everyone laughs until Vilgax emerges from the Rubble and fires eye lasers at Ben, throwing him through the sand  
Upgrade: Why can’t you just stay down!  
Vilgax fires more Lasers at him, as Jasper rises up from the rubble and watches from a distance  
Ben dodges by contorting his body, Max runs up behind him and readies the cannon  
Max: You made a huge mistake coming here Vilgax!  
Vilgax raises his hand and the energy flows into his gauntlet, the red crystal glowing bright  
Vilgax: You can’t expect this to work if it didn’t the first time! He aims his gauntlet at Ben Now this is over  
Steven Jumps in front of Ben and tries to shield him, the blast flings them back Ben turns into Heatblast  
Heatblast: This is my last alien Vilgax, meaning I gotta make this count before I time out!  
Vilgax and Ben clash, Ben fires a torrent of flame into Vilgax's face, he recoils. Vilgax fires lasers from his eyes but Ben propels himself upward and slings fireballs at Vilgax. Vilgax jumps up and kicks Ben to the ground, his Omnitrix beeping.  
Vilgax: it seems your time is up, boy. He pushed his foot down on Ben’s neck and soon that device will be mine.  
Heatblast: No… way… CREEP! His flames became white hot, and Ben let out an explosion of fire, Vilgax is shot into the scrapped warship, racing against the clock, Ben unleashes as much fire as he can at Vilgax. The Omnitrix times out and Ben falls to the ground, exhausted.  
Jasper: I’ve seen enough! I see that Vilgax is just as pathetic as the worthless lifeforms on this planet!  
Vilgax: Hold your tongue! He pulls the broken pieces of metal out of his flesh. I could shatter you with one hand!   
Jasper: Maybe… but if I was a fusion…  
Lapis: breaks out from under the rubble and she sees Jasper, she gasps at the sight of the hulking gem and tries to fly away, Jasper grabs her leg  
Jasper: C’mere brat! She makes eye contact with her Lapis! Fuse with me!  
Lapis: What!?  
Jasper: Imagine our power if we fuse together! We could get rid of Vilgax and the Crystal Gems! Don't you want your revenge on them? For trapping you, for using you?  
Steven: Lapis don’t!  
Lapis silently thinks about it, then she scowls and holds her hand out, Jasper flashes a maniacal smile as she dances with the blue Gem, they form into a green mass of light and grow to an immense size, and become Malachite.  
Malachite(Jasper): Laughs and forms a hand from the water and grabs Vilgax  
Vilgax: When the diamonds hear about this-  
Malachite(Jasper): The diamonds don't care about you! Prepare to rot! She launches him out to sea, she turns to the gems Now as for you! She forms another hand, it looms behind her, but it then grabs her wrist What!? Another hand grabs her other wrist What’s happening!?  
Malachite(Lapis): I’m done being someone else’s prisoner! You’re MINE now! And there’s nothing you can do about it!  
Steven: Lapis wait!  
Malachite Drags herself into the sea, struggling to break free of her own chains  
Malachite(Lapis): Let’s stay on this doomed planet… TOGETHER!   
Malachite(Jasper): No! NOOOOOOOOOO! She drags herself under and becomes lost within earth’s vast ocean  
Everyone stares out at sea, dumbstruck by what they saw  
Garnet: Yikes, they are not good for each other at all  
Ben: That was… a little overwhelming…  
Steven: Are you ok?  
Ben: Y-yeah… maybe.  
They looked out at the ocean and saw the sunset, and sat down in the sand. Winded from their battle. Steven puts his hand on Ben’s shoulder.  
The battle was over.


	12. Ghosts

Ben stared down at his donut. He couldn’t shake what happened the day before… Vilgax’s voice echoed through his mind… His cold personality, his ruthless tactics, the way he talked to Grandpa Max, the way he-  
“Ben!” Steven said loudly.  
“Huh?” Ben snapped back to reality.  
“Are… Are you ok? You haven’t talked since we left the temple,” said Steven with worry in his voice.  
“Not… not really,” Ben folded his arms like he was trying to warm himself up, “I dunno I guess… I guess I’m still trying to recover. I barely made it out of there alive, and… What if Vilgax is still on Earth? I don’t know how he could’ve left after Malachite threw him in the ocean, and like, he’s a weird squid thing, he could maybe breathe underwater?”  
“Sounds like you have a lot on your mind,” said Sadie from the back of the store.  
Lars, who was half paying attention said, “You guys talking about the weird hand thing that crashed on the beach?”  
“Yeah, we were IN there!” said Steven.  
“...Shouldn’t we keep this secret?” said Ben.  
“Why?” Steven asked.  
“I-I dunno, I guess it just feels like we shouldn’t tell people because… honestly, I just assumed we should because of comics and stuff.”  
Steven chuckled, “it’s fine, I trust Lars and Sadie.”  
Ben groaned, “I’m sorry for being such a downer, I’m just very freaked out. Homeworld, Vilgax, Grandpa Max being a space cop, the stuff with your mom... “ He looked down at his wrist, “The… Omnitrix…” he activated it, the dial popped up and he started mindlessly flipping through the silhouettes.  
And then something caught his attention, a silhouette he didn’t recognize. It was humanoid, tall, wide, and… Ben inhaled sharply, “N-no…” he stood up quickly, “No, no, no, no,” his eyes were glued to the silhouette, he was shaking.  
“Is everything ok?” said Sadie.  
Steven got up and tried to calm Ben down, “What is it? What happened?”  
Ben pointed to the Omnitrix, “It’s him, he-he was in my dreams the night before they invaded, and now he’s in the watch!”  
“It’s ok it’s ok!” said Steven. Ben pushed him away.  
Ben glared at him, “Steven!” he was startled by his own voice, “I… everything is not ok…”  
“Ben…” Steven started.  
Ben turned the dial and turned into Fasttrack, and left the Big Donut quickly.  
Steven followed after Ben, “Thanks for the donuts, Sadie and Lars!” Steven yelled behind him.  
“Uh, yeah, good to see you again!” Sadie responded.  
Ben sat under the Lighthouse overlooking the Temple, he stared out at the sea, trying to take everything in. He took a deep breath, and started singing:  
Everybody told me this watch is dangerous  
I guess I didn’t believe it, until now  
All this power, but I’m a target  
All of this just messed me up  
How can it be?  
Why did this all happen to me?

Everybody tells me I’m responsible  
For the power I hold, and what that means  
Is that I have to protect Earth,   
From all threats that it could face  
How can it be?  
Why did this all happen to me?

Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
What am I going to tell you?  
You’re better off not knowing the evil I faced.  
I don’t want you to worry about who I just fought  
How I could’ve been killed  
I didn’t ask to be apart of this  
Now I just wish I was free  
I don’t need this  
You don’t need me  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah  
Wooah

“Ben…” said Steven from behind him.  
“Steven!” Ben blushed, “h-how much of that did you hear?”  
Steven smiled, “It’s fine, you have a nice singing voice.”  
Ben smirked, “I guess it’s contagious.”  
Steven sat next to Ben, “Y’know, Pearl might have some answers about what’s been going on with the watch.”  
“Yeah, we should go talk to her later…” said Ben, “But I think I wanna sit here for a bit.”  
“That’s fine,” said Steven, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder.  
Later, Steven and Ben walked to the Temple, Pearl was cleaning the clutter from the Warship, she heard the boys running up behind her, “Oh hello Steven and Ben! Have you come to help?”  
“Actually…” said Ben, “We were hoping you could help me?” He showed her the silhouette and expressed his concern.  
“I see,” she said, examining it closely, “Not much is known about the Omnitrix, Rumors floated around for hundreds of years… one of the biggest rumors is that it was made for researching DNA Samples, perhaps Vilgax’s tampering caused his DNA to be scanned by the Omnitrix, so you have the ability to become his species.”  
“I don’t wanna be him, I just barely lived when I fought him… I-I can’t control that kinda power!” Ben said.  
“Y-you don’t have to use him!” said Steven.  
“Yeah…” said Ben, “I suppose.”  
“Now, come on!” Said Pearl, with a sense of enthusiasm, “Why don’t you turn into, uh… Large Repite, and help me with this junk!”  
Ben gave a weak smile, “Humungousaur, Pearl… and yeah, sure,” Ben turned the dial to the familiar Silhouette of Humungousaur and pressed it down. He transformed into the giant alien and picked up a large pile of broken metal, “Where do you want this?” Ben asked.  
“Well if you could just stack it over here-” Something caught Pearl’s attention, “Hold on for a moment,” she walked under Ben and picked up a green speckled Gemstone, “Oh dear…”  
“What is it Pearl?” asked Steven.  
“Well, it looks like Vilgax’s Pearl didn’t make it out of the Warship. Luckily her Gemstone hasn’t shattered.”  
“You mean that weird other Pearl?” Steven asked, “Do you know her?”  
“Not all Pearls know each other, Steven,” she explained, “There are hundreds, maybe thousands of Pearls on Homeworld, same with any other Gem.”  
Steven was taken back by this information, “Th-thousands?!”  
Ben set down the pile of metal, “Is she gonna reform like Amethyst?” he asked.  
“She should soon,” Pearl said, “She must’ve poofed last night during the crash…”  
They continued sorting out the remains of the ship, after setting the Pearl somewhere safe. Ben had eventually timed out and took a break.  
“I think I’m feeling a little better,” said Ben, “I’m just getting over the initial shock I guess.”  
“That’s good!” said Steven, “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”  
Just then, the green Pearl glowed, it floated in the air and produced a human shape. She formed and landed on the ground, she took a look at her surroundings.   
“Hello!” said Pearl, “You must be very confused.”  
The green Pearl scowled and summoned her weapon from her gem, a Staff with blades on each side, “You’ll pay for what you did to my master!”  
Pearl summoned her spear, “Please, we don't want to hurt you!”  
“Silence traitor!” She aimed her weapon at Pearl’s gem, “I should shatter you! You disgust me, you’re a disgrace to your people and your planet!”  
Pearl stepped back, only for the other to lunge at her. The Green Pearl kicked Pearl into a pile of scrap metal. Pearl picked up a piece of metal and threw it at her opponent, and followed up by forming a cloud of sand around her.  
Pearl took a deep breath, “I had no idea she’d be so strong…”  
The enemy Pearl jumped out of the sand and threw her staff at Pearl, who deflected it, the Green Pearl summoned another staff, they clashed, dodging and parrying each other’s attacks.  
“I must say I’m impressed,” said the other Pearl, “Despite being a Pearl, you are quite skilled at fighting.”  
Pearl kicked the attacker away and fired blasts from the tip of her spear, knocking her farther back.  
The blades on the evil Pearl’s Staff glowed, she slashed toward Pearl, sending a wave of energy toward her. Pearl fell on her back, and Vilgax’s Pearl jumped on top of her and drove her staff through Pearl’s chest, poofing her.  
Ben and Steven screamed at the sight of Pearl’s physical form dissipating, “What are we going to do?” Steven said frantically.  
Ben looked at the Omnitrix, “I have an idea.”  
“Now to shatter her, goodbye, fool!” Vilgax’s Pearl prepared to drive her blade into the Gemstone.  
“Stop this at once!” said a voice from behind her.  
She turned around and saw a large, menacing figure. She knelt down, “My Lord, forgive me, I thought you were killed by these horrible traitors.” (In reality, Ben had turned into Vilgax’s DNA Sample, and luckily his supervillain voice was enough to fool her)  
“Now, leave this place, I… uh… no longer have any use for you.”  
“What!?” She looked up at him, “Lord Vilgax! I-I don’t understand. I have been nothing but loyal to you… wait.” She took a closer look at him, “No, it’s you! The Omnitrix Weilder!”  
“Shoot,” said Ben.  
“I won’t fight you,” She said, “Even if you aren’t my master, I know the power all members of his species have. Just tell me where he is and I’ll spare your Pearl.”  
Ben, wide-eyed, said, “Well uh, Jasper and Lapis fused into Malachite and, threw him into the ocean,” He pointed in the general direction he was thrown.  
She kicked Pearl’s gem toward him, “I’ll take my leave then,” she turned toward the ocean, “And by the way… Should our paths cross again, I will not hesitate to kill you and your teammates.”  
She walked into the ocean.  
Ben let out a loud sigh as he turned human, “Was NOT a fan of that…”  
“C’mon,” said Steven, “Let’s get Pearl somewhere safe.”  
Meanwhile, in an airport just outside Beach City, 3 people exited a private jet. A tall man in a white coat and hat, his daughter, with her hair tied in buns with blonde highlights, and a shorter man with grey hair, despite how young he looked.  
“We’re here Jotaro-san,” said the short one, “Are you sure there are Stand Users here?”  
“I’m not positive, but we can’t risk it, if there are more Arrows, we can’t let them get into the wrong hands,” Said Jotaro, “C’mon Koichi.”  
“Another thing,” Koichi continued, “Was it a good idea to bring Jolyne? She doesn’t have her Stand yet.”  
“She’ll be fine,” Jotaro said bluntly. As he began to walk out, one of the airport workers accidentally ran into him, “Oi! Watch where you’re going!”  
“Sorry, sir! It won’t happen again!” said the worker, as he walked away to continue his work.  
Jotaro adjusted his hat and sighed, “Yare yare daze…”  
TO BE CONTINUED


	13. Bizarre Encounters in Beach City

Steven and Ben ran up to “Beach City Walk Fries,” a small business set up on the Beach City Boardwalk run by the Fryman family.  
Steven had only one thing on his mind, The Bits.   
They rushed to the counter, Steven slammed his fists down and said, “GIMME THE BITS!”  
Mr. Fryman jumped, “Goodness Steven, you startled me. Oh, by the way, I haven’t seen you in a while.”  
“I was on a road trip,” Said Steven, “But nowhere has Beach City Walk Fries’ famous Fry Bits!”  
“...Steven, they’re just messed up fries that we can’t sell.”  
“Fryman, gimme those bits,” Said Steven bluntly.  
Mr. Fryman sighed, “One thing of bits coming up.”  
“By the way,” said Steven, “Where are Ronaldo and Peedee?”  
“Well Peedee is taking a day off, but Ronaldo took an early break to go spy on these tourists because he thought they looked weird,” Fryman sighed, “It’s a bit creepy but hey, he’s happy,” He handed Steven a small bag of bits.  
Steven and Ben left and noticed Ronaldo, hiding behind a bench with binoculars.  
“Hey, Ronaldo!” Said Steven, “Who are you spying on?”  
“Steven, it’s not spying,” said Ronaldo in a very matter-of-fact tone, “I’m investigating!”  
“Pretty sure it’s spying if you don’t have a warrant,” said Ben.  
Ronaldo groaned, “I have a good cause… you…”   
“Ben,” Ben said.  
“Well Ben,” Ronaldo pointed toward three people on the beach, “These are clearly alien creatures.”  
Ben looked over and was disappointed to see 3 regular people, “Dude they’re just humans.”  
“Perhaps at first glance, but look closer,” he pointed toward them, “The one in the lab coat, notice his freakish height, and how his hat seems to fuse with his hair, how is that possible? Or that little boy, he has grey hair! As a child!”  
Ben and Steven looked to each other, “Dude, just because they have weird fashion choices doesn’t mean they’re aliens,” said Ben.  
“That’s EXACTLY what they want you to think!” Ronaldo yelled, “They’re a species known as Snake People or Sneeple, they use their shapeshifting abilities to take the forms of humans, and use their invisible spirit partners to cause mischief, they’re everywhere! Open your eyes! Don’t be a sheep!” Ronaldo said in a frenzy.  
“I’m gonna say hi!” said Steven.  
Ben and Steven walked down to the beach, where Jotaro and Koichi were looking at the pile of debris from the Warship, Jolyne was sitting in the sand playing a video game.  
“Only a Stand User could’ve done something like this,” said Jotaro.  
“I didn’t see any when I searched the Boardwalk,” said Koichi, “And I had Echoes out the whole time and no one noticed.”  
“Strange,” said Jotaro, “What else could’ve caused this damage?”  
“Uh, hi,” said Steven, “What are you guys doing?”  
Jotaro and Koichi turned around. Jotaro cleared his throat, “My name is Dr. Jotaro Kujo, I’m a marine biologist and I came here to see the ocean life. I hear that its… very unique.”  
“You wouldn’t… happen to know where this debris came from, would you?” asked Koichi.  
“Actually we do!” said Steven, “It’s from a Gem warship, me and my friends were kidnapped by them but we managed to escape and the ship crashed on the beach in front of our house.”  
Jotaro raised an eyebrow, “Yare yare daze, kids and their imaginations.”  
“Wait Jotaro-san!” Said Koichi, “He could be telling the truth, I’ve met an alien in Morioh!”  
“I am telling the truth!” said Steven, “I’m even half-alien, see!” he lifted his shirt and revealed his gemstone, Jotaro gasped, “Ben can also turn into aliens, show ‘em, Ben.”  
“...Oh, yeah,” He turned the dial and transformed into Fasttrack, “Tada!”  
Jotaro looked at them silently, Koichi pointed at them and yelled in shock, “You-you’re aliens!”  
“Well, he was born half-alien, I got this watch a few months ago and it turns me into aliens,” Ben corrected, “But I guess you’re technically correct.”  
“Interesting…” said Jotaro, “Do you have any memories of being shot with an arrow? In your sleep maybe?”  
“What?” said Ben, “Are you ok?”  
“Nevermind,” said Jotaro, “We were about to rent a boat and go to the ocean for some more marine research, would you like to come with us?”  
“Jotaro-san!” Koichi interjected, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”  
“They aren’t a threat, we’ll be fine, besides,” He looked toward the boys, “I’ve dealt with worse.”  
Ben and Steven shuddered.  
Later, they were on a nice boat, Jotaro was looking out at the ocean with binoculars.  
Ben leaned over to Steven, “I’m beginning to get weird vibes from these guys.”  
“Me too… kinda,” said Steven, “I mean, this whole time they were just staring out into the ocean, I don’t know how that helps with marine biology.”  
“Oh my gosh,” said Ben.  
“What?”   
“What if Ronaldo was right?” said Ben, worried.  
Ben and Steven looked to each other, “Nah.”  
“What are you guys talking about,” said Jolyne from behind them.  
The boys jumped, “Oh, nothing,” said Ben.  
“You think my dad’s odd right?” Jolyne asked.  
“...yeah…” said Ben, “No offense.”  
“It’s fine,” said Jolyne, “I’m used to it,” she leaned against the side of the boat, “Once when I told him about a bully in school, he scared him so bad, that no one messes with me… but also no one wants to… ya know, hang out with me.”  
Steven frowned, “I can be your friend,” he held out his hand, “My name’s Steven by the way.”  
Jolyne’s eyes widened, she shook his hand, “Thanks, I’m Jolyne, call me JoJo.”  
“And my name’s Ben, it’s nice to meet you, JoJo,” said Ben.  
“Show me what you can turn into,” said Jolyne, “Or can you only turn into the blue cat?”  
“His name is Fasttrack, and yes I have 10 aliens… well 11 technically but I don't want to use one of them,” The Omnitrix’s dial popped up, “I don’t wanna use Humungousaur, since he’s too big, could sink the boat… oh, I know!” Ben turned the dial and pressed it down, in a green flash, he turned into a red, metallic crustacean, “Overflow!”  
“What can it do?” Jolyne asked.  
“Shoot water, control water, breathe in the water... I think. I haven’t tried in all honesty, just assumed,” said Ben.  
“Oh cool,” she said, she turned to Steven, “What about you, does that rock in you stomach do anything?”  
“Mostly just this,” Steven summoned his shield, “Oh and this,” he created a bubble around him, “And I can heal people.”  
“That’s actually really cool!” said Jolyne, “Kinda reminds me of my great uncle Josuke.”  
Suddenly, the boat started rocking back at forth, “What’s going on?” Ben yelled.  
“I don’t know…” said Jotaro.  
Suddenly, a giant sea monster burst out of the ocean, it looked like nothing they had ever seen before. With its razor-sharp teeth, cold vacant eyes, and tentacles coming from its mouth. It growled and lunged toward the boat.  
Just before it came in contact, Jotaro yelled, “Star Platinum! Stop time, now!”  
Immediately after, the beast was blown back.  
“Ben, did you see that?” Asked Steven.  
“Yeah, it almost ATE us!” Ben yelled.  
“No! Right next to Dr. Kujo, there was like… a ghost next to him.”  
“Steven,” said Ben, “I don’t need you to lose it right now, we’re being attacked by something.”  
“Right sorry,” said Steven, “So what’s the plan?”  
“Make a bubble around your head, like a helmet,” Ben commanded. Steven did as he said and then Ben ran to the side of the boat.  
“What are you two doing!” Jotaro yelled.  
“Don’t worry, this isn’t our first time doing this!” Ben said as he jumped into the sea.  
“You know this isn’t anything like what we’ve done before,” said Steven.  
“I just needed to psyche myself up,” said Ben.  
The Krakken noticed the two boys and swam toward them.  
“Steven, grab on!” Ben yelled. Steven held onto Overflow’s back as he used his water jets to propel himself away from the attacker.  
Steven looked back and saw the monster’s gaping mouth, “Can you go a little faster?”  
“I can try!” Ben shot more pressurized water from his hands, but he just couldn’t shake it. Then, he saw a rock formation shaped like a loop, he turned and flew through the loop, the Krakken followed and got its head stuck in the loop. It struggled and scratched at the rocks.  
“That bought us some time…” said Ben, “I’m out of ideas Steven… Steven?”  
Ben looked behind him and saw Steven crying, “Poor thing…”  
“Steven, it was about to kill us!”   
Steven sniffed, “I know but… look at it, it doesn’t want to…”  
“How do you… hey look,” Ben pointed to a green piece of metal, “What’s that?”  
Steven swam over and immediately recognized it, “It’s a piece of the ship, looks like it fell off when we crashed it…” he noticed some… green glass-like shards and green slime surrounding the piece of the ship, he looked to the Krakken and back at the green shells, “Oh no…”  
“What is it?” Ben asked.  
“These were her eggs…”   
Ben took a closer look, “Oh…”  
Steven got a determined look on his face, “Ben, help me move this.”  
“Oh, ok!” Ben stood and began lifting with Steven, they managed to flip it over, and under was one, completely undamaged egg.   
Steven carefully lifted the egg, just as the Krakken escaped her trap, and swam toward the boys, Steven stepped in front of Ben and heald the egg out. The Kraken slowed to a halt and examined the egg. She grabbed it in her arms and swam away from them, and formed a nest in the sand, and cuddled the egg.  
Steven smiled and began crying again, “She just thought she lost all her babies.”  
“Alright,” said Ben, “Let’s uh… get back to the boat before I time out.”  
Later, they arrived at the shore, Max and the Crystal Gems were waiting for them.  
“Steven!” Said Pearl, (Now sporting a new form, with a ribbon around her waist and no skirt anymore,) “You went out to sea with these strangers?”  
“It’s fine! We helped them!” said Steven, “We helped a sea monster find her baby!”  
“What?” Aked Max.  
“My apologies,” said Jotaro, “My name is Dr. Jotaro Kujo, I was sent here by the Speedwagon Foundation to check and make sure there weren’t any Stand Users in Beach City, they were alerted when the giant monster came out of a hand that fell from the sky…”  
“He said that like it wasn’t the weirdest thing he heard,” said Ben.  
“Jotaro…” said Max, “Are you… Joseph’s grandson?”  
“You knew my grandfather?” Jotaro asked.  
“Of course! We’re great friends, we met back in the 60s!” Max said excitedly.  
“Wait, THAT Joseph?” asked Amethyst.  
“We haven’t seen to him in years!” Pearl exclaimed.  
“Yeah, how's the old geezer been?” Asked Max.  
“Well, he’s been in Empire City with Suzie and Shizuka,” Jotaro explained, “Haven’t talked to him in a while though.”  
“Woah wait!” Ben butted in, “What's a Stand User? What’s the Speedwagon foundation? Who’s Joseph.”  
“Stands…” said Garnet, “Are the manifestations of one’s soul, they possess abilities far beyond that of humans, and only a few humans can activate their stand…”  
“Koichi and I are Stand Users,” Said Jotaro, mine is called Star Platinum, and Koichi’s is Echoes. In the past, we encountered people who were given stands by being shot with an arrow, and most of them had malicious intent. So we can’t take any more chances with things like this.”  
"So that's what the weird ghost thing was!" Said Steven.  
"You… could see it?" Jotaro asked.  
“What happened here wasn’t caused by a Stand User, Doctor,” said Pearl, “It was a Gem Fusion called Malachite, she and an alien warlord were dragged into the sea, and we need to find her before something bad happens.”  
“We could use your help,” said Max, “If you’re willing I mean.”  
Jotaro smiled, “Yare yare daze, looks like we don’t have much of a choice, of course, we’ll help.”  
“Jotaro-san,” said Koichi, “I don’t quite understand what’s happening…”  
“Don’t worry Koichi,” Jotaro responded, “It’s just another bizarre adventure.”  
Meanwhile…  
Peridot stumbled from her escape pod, “Ugh, stupid clods, stranding me on this stupid CLODDY planet!” she climbed out of the crater formed by her impact, she pulled up her screen and tapped a few buttons, up popped a screen that said, (in Gem language,) OMNITRIX SCHEMATICS DATA DOWNLOADED. She cackled, “Perfect!” she input another code, displaying a map of Earth, “Now, I’ll be able to enact my master plan! All I need is a compatible human…”   
She input some data, it pinpointed one DNA sample, in Empire City, Empire State, “What’s this…” The DNA data read HUMAN/OSMOSIAN HYBRID, “Osmosian, and not too far away from my current location! Haha! I’m the luckiest gem in the universe!” She began walking toward Empire City, where a young Kevin Levin was sleeping in a junkyard.  
To Be Continued


	14. Dirty Trix

2016  
Empire City

Kevin was walking down a sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, then he spotted a strange-looking old man, the perfect target. Kevin pretended to bump into the old man, making them both fall over, “Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry sir!” Kevin said as he helped him to his feet.  
“Thank you, young man!” Said the old man, “You should watch where you’re going, though, don’t wanna run into the wrong person!”  
“You’re very correct!” said Kevin, “You are very wise, goodbye then!” Kevin walked away, with the man’s wallet, he opened it up and found a few 100 dollar bills, “Heh, score,” he looked at the I.D. inside, “Hmm, Joseph Joest-”  
“Excuse me, young man!” The man yelled, “Can you please give me my wallet back.”  
“Huh!?” Kevin turned around and saw the man again.  
“You can keep the cash, I just want my wallet back, it was an anniversary gift from my wife!”   
“O-oh… ok,” Kevin returned the wallet and ran away, “What a weird old guy,” Kevin walked over to a gas station, and picked up a hot dog, “Can’t believe my luck, actually cooked food,” he sat down on the side of the gas station.  
“Well look who it is,” said a voice seemingly from nowhere.  
Kevin jumped, he looked around and saw a couple of kids, “Oh great, you again, what do you want from me?”  
“We want you to know your place, freak!” said one of the kids, wielding a baseball bat.  
“You got lotsa guts showing your face ‘round here!” said the leader of the punks, “This is a no freak zone!”  
“I just want some food you jerks,” said Kevin, setting down his meal, “In fact, I was just about to leave so if you could just-”  
“You givin’ us orders, freakshow?” the leader said, “We’re the only ones givin’ orders!”  
“What should we do then boss?” said another one of his lackeys.  
“I think we should teach the freak some manners, GET ‘IM BOYS!”  
Kevin braced himself, one of the punks whipped a chain at him, Kevin grabbed it and surged electricity through it, making the kid drop it, “Unless you wanna get MORE hurt, I suggest leaving me alone!”  
Another kid swung at him with a baseball bat, Kevin dodged and swung the chain around his attacker’s arm, zapping him. While he was dealing with the bat wielder, the ringleader reeled back and punched him in the back of the head, Kevin collapsed and the punks began kicking him. In a fit of rage, Kevin covered his body in electricity, making the punks back off and start running.  
Kevin began panting, he got up and walked away. When he made it back to his junkyard, it was already dark. Kevin opened the door to a broken car, and slumped down in the passenger seat, he popped open the glove box and pulled out a picture, a family photo, taken when he was very young it was him, as a baby, his mom, and his birth father. Kevin began crying, “I miss you so much…” he held the photo close and began to doze off.  
Hours later, he was woken by a strange thing poking his face, Kevin grabbed it, it was a cylindrical floating thing, “What the hell…”  
“Oh good! You’ve finished hibernating!” said Peridot.  
Kevin screamed, “Stay away! Listen, weirdo, I don't have that much money but I WILL hurt you!”  
“Don’t bother attacking me, Hybrid, you are my test subject!” Peridot explained.  
“Excuse me?” Kevin, calming down a bit.  
“You see, I am of a race that is far more advanced than those on earth. I am from Homeworld, but was stranded on this disgusting place by some rebellious traitors!”  
Kevin stared at her in confusion.  
“Luckily,” Peridot continued, “I had downloaded the schematics for the most powerful weapon in the universe, the Omni-Matrix! And after the past few days, I created my very own!” She turned around and pulled out an Omni-Matrix, it was a dark red color, with a jewel-shaped button on the side. The dial had 4 colored triangles, colored white, blue, pink, and yellow along the border, making an X shape in the middle.  
“Ok...?” said Kevin, “What do I have to do with this?”  
“My species cannot wield this device, it’d dissipate my physical form, however, your half-Osmosian DNA makes you the most compatible for this device!”  
“Osmosian?” Kevin asked, “Wait, you want to give me the most powerful weapon in the world?”  
“Why of course!” she said, “How else would I test it?”  
Kevin looked at the watch, and thought about how many times he was ganged up on and attacked, “What does it do?”  
“Why, it turns the wearer into alien beings, however since I scanned the original while it was in a start-up function, so you only have access to 10 aliens, plus the one DNA sample I collected, a Reactan, they’re extinct now, so you’re quite lucky!”  
Kevin snatched the watch from her and put it over his right wrist, it adjusted to fit him snugly, and Kevin felt a twinge of pain as it calibrated to his DNA, “Woah…”  
“Press the button on the side, should be simple enough for your human mind to comprehend, and then select the DNA sample you wish to use,” Peridot instructed.  
Kevin tapped the button, and the dial popped up, he twisted it, he was drawn to the silhouette of a tall figure with fire on his head. He pressed it down and transformed, his body erupted in purple flames, and was covered in black rocks, with the Watch’s dial on his chest.  
“Oh my god!” said Kevin.  
“Hm, I figured this would happen, the DNA is a bit corrupted due to my crude way of assembling this Omni-Matrix, you see Pyronites don’t usually come in this color,” said Peridot.  
“So I guess it’s more of an Anti-Trix?” Kevin asked.  
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Peridot, “However I did improve on the original design a bit, you can change between aliens while transformed, but you’ll run the timer down faster.”  
“You keep talking about ‘the original,’ who’s wearing that one?” Kevin asked.  
“A Ben Tennyson, we’ll deal with him and his CLOD teammates soon enough, Hybrid, but for now, we should test the power of this device.”  
Kevin thought for a moment and then smiled, “I have something in mind.”  
Kevin lead her to an abandoned warehouse, “What use could this temple have?” Peridot asked.  
“Shh!” Kevin peered in and saw the punks that beat him up the day before, “Oh this will be good,” he turned to Peridot, “What’s the strongest guy I have here?”  
“Well if you want pure brute strength, I suggest using the Vaxisaurian form, it’s the large reptilian one.”  
“Perfect,” Kevin pushed the warehouse doors open.  
The ring leader looked over, “Well look who it is, the freak wants a rematch,” he got up and grabbed a bat, “C’mon boys, we got a freak to beat.”  
Kevin started laughing, and the boys hesitated a bit, “Watch this,” he selected the giant reptile alien and slapped the dial down. Suddenly, the punks were staring down a large, red bipedal dinosaur, with spikes jutting from its body. Kevin roared at them, causing them to fall over. He slammed his fists into the ground, causing it to crack and break. He then grabbed the ring leader and began squeezing, but then he loosened his grip.  
Kevin brought him close to his face, “If I ever see you or any of your lackeys again, I won’t be so nice, understand?”  
The ring leader nodded.  
“Good,” Kevin dropped him and he ran away.  
“Well the Vaxisaurian DNA is completely stable, yet also corrupted like the Pyronite Sample,” said Peridot, putting in some notes.  
Kevin tapped the Anti-Trix and turned back to human, “This is perfect! I have an actual place to live instead of some junkyard!”  
“Yes, I suppose this will be a suitable place to test your alien abilities,” said Peridot, “shall we continue the tests.”  
“I don’t know how things work on your planet,” said Kevin, “But I need like, a few more hours of sleep,” he plopped down on a couch, “And don’t wake me up this time, let me do it on my own,” He closed his eyes.  
“Hm, very well,” said Peridot, she folded her arms and waited.  
Kevin woke up and stretched his arms, he took a look at his new home in the daylight, it was surprisingly nice for what it was, a small tube TV, a recliner, and the couch Kevin spent the night on.  
“Well that was fast,” said Peridot.  
“Were you standing there the whole time?” He asked.  
“I had nothing better to do, it was only a few hours,” she said, “Can we do more tests now?”  
“Alright,” Kevin jumped off the couch, “I wanna bring some things of mine from the junkyard here, is there a thing in here that could help me do that?”  
“Use the Citrakayah form, obviously,” said Peridot.  
“Oh yeah, of course, which one is that?”  
Peridot groaned and walked over to him, she popped up the dial and twisted it to a cat-like silhouette, “There, the Citrakayah form, as I said.”  
“Right, thank you,” Kevin slapped down on the Anti-Trix and turned into a lanky, dark blue lanky feline humanoid, and ran off to the Junkyard, and quickly returned with his old family photo, a portable game console, and a stuffed animal toy.  
“What purpose do those items serve?” Peridot asked, “Are they weapons?”  
“What? No, just a few sentimental things, my dad gave these to me before he…” Kevin went silent.  
“What is ‘dad?’” she asked.  
Kevin raised an eyebrow, “Erm, I’ll explain later.”  
“Ok then, change to another form, just press the dial down,” Peridot instructed.  
Kevin pressed it down and turned into a ghost-like form, with exposed bones and a tail instead of legs, floating in the air, “Woah! I’m flying!”  
“Yes, of course, you’re an Ectonurite,” said Peridot, “Flying is one of their main abilities, along with phasing through solid objects, turning invisible, and possessing organic lifeforms.”  
“Possession?” Kevin got a wicked idea, “Let’s go do some field testing!”  
They made their way to the Total Zone Arcade, he went invisible and phased into one of the workers, taking control of their entire body, he then walked into the back room and pulled out a hand truck. He then unplugged one of his favorite games (Fatal Street Kombat) and rolled it out of the building, without anyone thinking twice, he then brought it to his new home and then left the guy behind a gas station. Needless to say, that guy had a very confusing walk home.  
“Sweet!” said Kevin, “I’ve always wanted to own one of these babies!” He plugged it in. Kevin activated the Anti-Trix and began scrolling, “Hey this dude looks cool!” He smacked it down and became an alien made out of purple crystals, “Oh I like this one!”  
“Ah yes a Petrosapien,” said Peridot, “They have the ability to create synthetic crystals from their own bodies.”  
Kevin made a small crystal structure from his hands, “I could like, use this to fix up cars!”  
“What is ‘cars?’” Peridot asked.  
“Seriously?” Kevin asked, “They’re the metal things people drive around the street, I was sleeping in one when you found me.”  
“Oh, the primitive transportation devices?”  
“...yeah. Hey how long have you like, been on Earth?” Kevin asked, tapping his Anti-Trix and turning human.  
Peridot checked her log, “I came here on log date 3-1-2, performing a maintenance check on the Earth galaxy warp. I was then ambushed by a group of traitorous rouges, the Crystal Clods!”  
“Oh damn,” said Kevin, “What did they do?”  
“They prevented me from performing my duties and broke the galaxy warp IMMEDIATELY after I fixed it. As if they haven’t done enough to me, they break all my robots!” She swiped on her screen a few times, “Later, I came to Earth again, to remove the Omni-matrix from the Ben Tennyson, but the Crystal Clods destroyed our ship and forced me to use an escape pod.”  
“Wow… what a bunch of jerks,” said Kevin, “Why would they do this to you?”  
“It’s clear that they just don’t understand my motives if they only knew!”  
“...I think I get it,” said Kevin, “My uh, my stepdad is awful. He called me a freak and did horrible things to my mom and I.”  
“Ah, because of your supernatural powers,” said Peridot.  
Kevin looked down at himself, “Yeah, that…” he took a look at his watch, “But now… I have the power to deal with people like that,” he looked to Peridot, “So let's finish these tests and teach those Crystal Clods a lesson!”  
Peridot smiled, “Yes! Let us finish those tests, you have yet to become the Galvanic Mechamorph, Galvan, Vulpimancer, Lepidopteran, Cascan, and Reactan,” She thought about it, “In fact, I believe the Galvanic Mechamorph form could also help with ‘cars’ fixing.”  
“Oh, really?” he twisted the dial and pressed it down, he turned into a purple, liquid metal alien, “Is it this one?”  
“Yes, Galvanic Mechamorphs can merge with technology, they were a synthetic species created on accident by the Galvans, they inhabit Galvan Prime’s moon.”  
Kevin looked around the warehouse for something to test his abilities, he finally decided on merging with the TV, he jumped into it and it was covered in purple circuitry, he then connected it with the satellite dish atop the Warehouse, extending it’s range. Kevin disconnected from the TV and switched it on, turning to the news, “Now I have like, all the channels!” Kevin said excitedly, he was about to change the channel but the story currently being reported on the news. Kevin turned the volume up.  
“...in the bank, a man has taken the police by surprise, robbing a bank using… bugs,” The anchor said.  
“What the heck?” said Kevin, “Peridot come look at this.”  
“The man in question,” the anchor continued, “Had taken out the guards, seemingly by using poisonous insects, police have instructed to stay away from the bank until the situation is resolved.”  
“I don’t understand,” said Peridot.  
“He’s putting those people in danger!” said Kevin, “I-I think I’m going to help them!”  
“Kevin, they are not relevant,” Peridot said.  
“You don’t get it!” Kevin started pacing around, “I-I need to come up with a plan, I need to think of something.”  
“Then become the Galvan form,” said Peridot, “They are known for their large brain capacity.”  
Kevin changed into a red, lanky, somewhat frog-like alien, he took a look at the TV and said, “I’d have to use the Ectonurite form to sneak into the bank, then I can use my vulpimancer form to take him down, it should be quite easy considering his size, yet I do not know how he is using those insects to his advantage, though I doubt these small creatures would manage to damage me in any way. Peridot, I need you to monitor the situation, and contact me if there's anything I should know!”  
Peridot sighed, “Fine. This should be a good opportunity to analyze the fighting power of your forms.”  
“I will return shortly!” he slapped the dial on his chest and turned into his ghostly form again, and floated away.  
Outside the bank, police were surrounding the area, “Sir!” said the chief officer through a megaphone, “what are your demands?”  
“My demands?” Clancy yelled at the cops, “I DEMAND bloodshed! Humanity is a stain on this planet! They must pay for what they’ve done!”  
“I don’t think so!” said Kevin, who phased through the wall, “Leave these people alone, they didn’t do anything to you.”  
“Hey, you got some freaky powers too,” said Clancy, “We have something in common, so what can you do?”  
“I can kick your ass, that's what!” Kevin slapped the watch and turned into an eyeless dog-like alien, he roared and jumped toward him, he pinned Clancy down and snarled, he turned to try and tell the hostages to run, but he then realized that he can’t talk in that form.  
Clancy tried to get Kevin off of him, and yelled, “Get him, Insect Hospital!”  
Kevin was pushed away by something he sniffed and sensed something flying toward him, he pounced on it but fell straight through, he growled in confusion.  
“Hybrid!” said Peridot through a communicator built into the Anti-Trix, “Turn into a different alien! That thing will overpower you!”  
Kevin slapped the Anti-Trix and turned into a green armored crustacean, “Alright, now I just need to,” he scanned the room, “Where’d that thing go?”  
Clancy chuckled, “You can’t see it, just like everyone else!”  
“What do you mean you can’t see it?” Peridot asked, “It’s right in front of you!”  
“Heh,” Clancy pointed to Kevin, “Insect Hospital, make this kid pay for messing with me!”  
Suddenly, Kevin was being bombarded with wasps, he shot high-pressure water at them, some of the shots making holes in the walls, the hostages started screaming.  
“Oh, right. Everyone! Get out of here!” Kevin yelled, he shot a blast at the door, making it swing open. People began running out while Kevin held Clancy off.  
“Oh, you are gonna pay for that!”  
“Peridot! I’m gonna try the last alien I have,” he moved his hand to the dial ready to slap it.  
“Reactans are very powerful,” she said, “If you aren't;t careful you could destroy that whole currency temple!”  
Just as Kevin was about to change, the police began running into the bank and pinned down Clancy.  
“Ya know what I think we’re good,” Kevin used his water powers to fly out of the bank and back home.  
“That wasn’t so bad!” said Kevin, “I managed to stop that weird dude, I wonder how he got that weird power though.”  
“Yes, you did manage to test out the DNA samples for my Omni-Matrix, It seems your forms are much physically stronger than average, not to mention the deformations, but for a prototype it works exactly how I envisioned!”  
“Awesome,” said Kevin, “So, how about we go and mess up those people who trapped you here?”  
“Gladly.”


	15. Equal and Opposite

When given great power, one is expected to be responsible with said power. Famous superheroes from comic books or TV live by this moral.  
Ben is not one of those superheroes.  
Ben and Jolyne suck over to the Beach City boardwalk, “Alright JoJo, Mr. Smiley’s on break, so what do ya say we take advantage of this situation?”  
Jolyne smirked, “Alright, what do you have in mind?”  
“Check this out!” Ben smacked the Omnitrix and turned into Upgrade. He slipped through the bars blocking off the Arcade, and merged with the coin machine, he then spat out about 100 coins, removed himself from the coin machine and brought the coins out, “Check this out!”  
Jolyne looked a bit disappointed, “Why not take them all?”  
“Because he’d get suspicious, besides, now that we have this much, it gives me plenty of time to enjoy destroying you in Lakewood Plaza Turbo!” Ben teased.  
Jolyne scoffed, “Yare yare dawa, of course, you can beat me in those shoddy American made games, I bet you can’t even beat me on the easiest track on F-Mega!”  
Ben gasped, “How DARE you!”  
“Just being honest, Benji,” Jolyne jabbed, “Of course we’d never know unless we try!”  
Upgrade’s eye narrowed, he went through the bars again and lifted them just enough to let Jolyne in, and they went straight to the F-Mega machine.  
Jolyne and Ben both inserted their stolen coins into the side by side arcade machines, a voice from the game said, “F-MEGA,” they both pressed start. The screen changed to an assortment of vehicles, the voice said, “SELECT YOUR CAR,” they both chose their favorite car and the game started.  
“Good luck,” said Jolyne.  
Ben chuckled, “It’s you who’ll need luck.”  
3  
2  
1  
STAAAAAAART!!  
Immediately they were off, Jolyne with a considerable lead, Ben drifted at the first corner, gaining a bit of speed. Ben and Jolyne were neck and neck, but Jolyne rammed Ben in the side, pushing him into the wall. Out of desperation, Ben started mashing buttons, but he knew JoJo had already won.  
“How are you doing this?” said Ben. He looked over to Jolyne.  
Jolyne sat there with a menacing aura, “Heh, I told you, Benji. I’m just a better gamer.”  
Ben felt utterly powerless as she pushed his car away and drove right through the finish line.  
Ben let out a long sigh, as Jolyne just smiled and crossed her arms.  
“I’ll never doubt you again,” said Ben.  
“Heh, pretty good,” said a voice from behind them, they whipped around.  
Kevin was standing there, arms crossed, “I’m pretty good at that game, but not that good.”  
“How’d you get in?” Ben asked.  
“Through the back obviously,” Kevin uncrossed his arms, Ben noticed his watch.  
“Hey, nice watch,” said Ben.  
“Thanks,” said Kevin, “Yours is pretty cool too,” he activated it and turned the dial, “Wanna see what it does?”  
Ben and Jolyne looked at each other in silence.  
Kevin slapped it down and turned into his version of Upgrade, “I call this guy Bootleg, what do ya think?”  
“What!?” Ben yelled, “T-there’s more than one?”  
“You can transform too huh?” said Kevin, “Show me.”  
Ben smiled and turned the dial and turned into Ghostfreak, “I call this guy Ghostfreak!”  
“Nice,” Kevin looked him up and down, “I got that guy too, call him Frightmare.”  
“This is insane!” said Ben, “I-I thought I was the only one with this! Did yours fall from the sky too?”  
“Yeah, kinda. By the way, I need something from you,” said Kevin.  
“Uh, what?”  
“I need your Omnitrix. Now,” Kevin fired a high power laser from his eye, knocking Ben into the F-Mega machine.  
“Augh. Never thought I’d be on the receiving end of that,” Ben struggled to get up.  
“What the hell is wrong with you?” said Jolyne.  
“Stay out of this if you know what’s good for you.” Kevin smacked the Anti-Trix and turned into his Galvan form, “Dark Matter!” he picked Ben up with his telekinesis. He threw him at the wall but Ben phased through at the last minute, “Right, of course, he’s able to do that,” he turned into his version of Humungousaur and rammed through the wall. Jolyne chased after him.  
Meanwhile, Mr. Smiley got off his break, he opened up the Arcade and saw a path of destruction, “...Why me?”  
Kevin swung toward Ben, who kept narrowly dodging, “Hold still you little creep!”  
“What do you call that one by the way?” Ben taunted, “Big Lizard?”  
“Shatterraptor,” Kevin answered.  
“That name sucks,” Ben quipped.  
Jolyne grabbed a stone and hurled it at Kevin, who turned around and glared at her, she gasped and started backing away, she pulled out her phone, but Kevin stomped his foot making a shockwave, she dropped her phone.  
“I told you to stay out of it!” he reeled back and prepared to punch her, but Ghostfreak sunk his claws into Kevin’s back, and ripped through his flesh. Kevin whipped around.  
“You dare attack me?” said Ghostfreak, “You’ll regret that choice for the rest of your life!” Ghostfreak flew around him and continuously scratched at his scaly body, but Kevin was healing just as fast as he was being attacked.  
“Man, I knew your aliens were weaker, but this? This is hilarious!” Kevin teased.  
“Weak? Weak?!” Ghostfreak yelled, “I’ll show you weak!” The Omnitrix beeped and Ben turned human and fell to the ground, “Aw, man.”  
Kevin prepared to crush Ben, but was stopped by someone yelling at him.  
“Oi!” Jotaro yelled, “You attacked my daughter!”  
“Oh, you’re just some guy? Heh, I guess I can take you out for fun. I got time,” he stomped toward Jotaro, who was unmoving.   
Kevin’s giant fist flew toward Jotaro, he scoffed and yelled, “Star Platinum!” and everything stopped. He walked out of the way of Kevin’s attack, “After all the skilled Stand Users I fought over the years, someone who just has mindless brute strength is a nice change of pace. Time shall move again.”  
“What the?” Kevin looked around, “Hey how did you-”  
“Finish him off, Star Platinum!” Jotaro summoned his Stand, who unleashed a flurry of punches at Kevin, “ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA, ORA!!!”  
Kevin flew backward, and crashed into the ground, and reverted to human.  
Jolyne laughed, “I knew that’d work, as soon as he attacked I called dad, and he heard all the fighting on the other end!”  
“Great timing Mr. Jotaro!” said Ben.  
“Jolyne, are you ok?” Said Jotaro, pushing Ben aside.  
“I’m fine dad,” said Jolyne standing up.  
“Yeah and I’m fine too thanks for asking,” said Ben under his breath.   
Jotaro walked over to Kevin and picked him up by his shirt collar, “You better start talking.”  
“Why did you go all crazy on me?” Ben asked.  
“Don’t play stupid, dweeb!” said Kevin, “You and your Crystal Clod friends know what they did!”  
“Excuse me?” said Ben, somewhat offended.  
Jotaro turned to Ben, “Go and get the Gems, I’ll keep an eye on this brat.”  
Moments later, Steven, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all surrounded Kevin for questioning.  
Kevin took a look at them, “So you’re the Crystal Clods,” he said.  
“It’s Crystal Gems kid,” said Amethyst, “And how do you know about us?”  
“You’re the ones who attacked Peridot!” Kevin snapped, “You’re a bunch of jerks and monsters!”  
“Peridot!?” said Pearl, “H-how do you know about her?”  
“She gave me this!” Kevin showed them the Anti-Trix, “So that I could kick your guys’ butts!”  
“Peridot… built an Omnitrix?” said Pearl, “But… That’s impossible!”  
“Obviously not, rock brain!” said Kevin, “Now she’s going to get her revenge on you for stranding her on Earth!”  
“...rude,” said Pearl.  
“You got it all wrong!” said Ben, “She and some other aliens kidnapped us!”   
“She did some awful stuff,” said Steven, “She threw us all in cells!”  
“She’s using you,” said Garnet, “The only reason she isn’t wearing that watch herself is that Gems can’t use it. She just wants you to get off Earth.”  
Kevin growled, “YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!”  
“Calm down,” said Garnet, “It’s going to be fine.”  
“Not for you it isn’t,” Kevin reeled back and kicked Jotaro, making him drop him, then he started running.  
“Get him!” said Ben, he ran after him, “I’ll just use Fasttrack to-'' Ben was shot down by a ball of slime, shot by Kevin who turned into Skunkmoth.  
Kevin was flying away, “See ya later, jerks!”  
Amethyst lifted her arms, “Garnet, throw me!” Garnet picked her up, reeled back and threw her straight into Kevin, knocking him out of the sky.  
Kevin pushed Amethyst off, he tried to take off but wasn’t able too, even standing was getting hard. Koichi was right behind him, using his Stand to keep him down, “Enemy neutralized, master!” said ACT3  
“N-no!” Kevin tried desperately to get up, “P-Peridot! I need help!”  
“Ugh, fine,” said Peridot through the communicator, “I will be there shortly.”  
“Hurry!” Kevin yelled.  
Ben and the Gems were closing in on him but were stopped when Peridot fired a laser directly at them.  
“Peridot!” yelled Garnet.  
“That is correct CLODS!” she said, landing next to Kevin, “Back away from my precious device!”  
“Careful! That spiky haired kid has some weird power!” Kevin warned.  
“I’m 19…” said Koichi.  
Peridot whipped around and fired directly at Koichi, knocking him back.  
“S-H-I-T!” said ACT3, “Master, 3 Freeze is no longer in effect!”  
“Oh no!” said Koichi, “That kid is gonna escape!”  
“We are clearly outnumbered,” said Peridot, “Take them out, quickly.”  
“Will do,” Kevin hit the Anti-Trix and turned into Breakneck, he quickly started slashing at everyone, but his focus shifted to Ben, he tackled him and started scratching at him, Ben blindly slapped the watch and turned into Heatblast, Kevin pulled back after being burned by his body.  
“Jotaro! Stop time and get him away from Ben!” said Pearl.  
“I can’t, he’s outside of my range,” said Jotaro, “If I stop time now it’ll run out by the time I get to him… however,” he turned to Peridot, “There is someone I can deal with now.”  
Peridot stepped back, “Stay back, organic! I am far more advanced than any of your kind!”  
“I’ve heard that before,” said Jotaro, “And he was much more threatening than you.”  
Peridot squeaked, “Hybrid! I require assistance!”  
Jotaro gritted his teeth, “Star Platinum: THE WO-”  
Kevin ran and kicked Jotaro in the back, Peridot grabbed onto him, and she raised her arm in the air using her fingers as propeller blades she flew off.  
“Farewell Crystal Clods! We forfeit this battle but the war has only just begun!” Peridot announced.  
Ben got ready to fly up after them but Garnet stopped him, “Leave them, they’ll be back.”  
“Are you ok Mr. Jotaro?” Steven asked.  
Jotaro stood up and rubbed his back, “I’ll be ok.”  
“I can’t believe Peridot made another Omnitrix,” said Ben, “It’s… kinda scary.”  
“Not to mention his aliens look really messed up,” said Jolyne, “I wonder what that’s about.”  
“It’s probably because he knows he can’t imitate the master,” said Ben.  
“...sure,” Jolyne replied.  
Kevin and Peridot laned a safe distance away from the heroes.  
“We will be safe for now,” said Peridot, “I did not expect them to gain more assistance, we’ll need to come up with a new plan of attack.”  
“Hey uh, Peridot?” asked Kevin.  
“Hm?”   
Kevin sighed, “Is what they said true?”  
“What?”  
“Like, do you care about me?” he asked, “Or am I just a tool?”  
Peridot raised an eyebrow, “Erm, well, you are the only one compatible with my device,” she explained, “You’re half Osmosian, that species is highly rare after their planet was destroyed.”  
“...so dad was an alien?”  
“One of your DNA donors was an Osmosian, that is why you are a Hybrid,” she explained, “The Osmosian DNA allows you to absorb energy, my Omnitrix lacks a proper stabilizer but your DNA acts as the missing piece!”  
“...I think I follow.”  
“In other words, I should thank the stars that I found you, my Hybrid,” she chuckled, “Yellow Diamond would be so pleased to see you, once I’m able to return to Homeworld.”  
Kevin smiled, “I guess I’m lucky too, if I never met you I’d be stuck in some junk yard wondering if I could have dinner that day. Ever since you gave me this thing, I’ve been… happier. Thank you, Peridot.”  
Peridot didn’t quite understand what he was getting at, but she assumed it was some strange Earth tradition, “Yes… Thank you as well, Hybrid.”  
“You know you can call me Kevin right?”  
“I prefer Hybrid, but I will do as you please,” she said.  
Kevin smiled and gave her a hug, she just awkwardly patted his head.


	16. Watermelopocolypse

Late in the evening, Steven and Greg were sitting in lawn chairs right in front of Greg’s highly successful business, It’s a Wash, Beach City’s Best (and only) car wash. They were munching on some fresh watermelons and spitting seeds.  
“Hey dad, look,” Steven spit a seed onto his cheek, making it look like a teardrop, “I’m Amadeus, my father, he disapproves of me!”  
“Ha, well check THIS out,” Greg spit 2 seeds in the air and closed his eyes, they both landed on his eyelids making it look like fake eyes. “Ta-da! Bet you can’t top that!”  
“Bet I can!” Steven bites into another watermelon, he took a deep breath and spit it at a soda can sitting on a cinder block. “Woo! Beat that!”  
Greg smirked, “Ha, very impressive, my son. But the name of the game ain’t distance or accuracy!”  
“It ain’t?”  
“No Steven, this challenge is all about who can spit the coolest. Allow me to demonstrate.”  
Greg took a big bite of melon until only the rind was left. He placed it on the ground, and winked at Steven, he hunched over and spat the seeds out between his legs, they hit the rind and ricocheted off the rind and into his hand.  
Steven clapped his hands, “Wow dad!” Greg didn’t move, “Dad? Are you ok?”  
“...help me, son!” Steven straightened him out and Greg flopped into his chair, “...beat… that…”  
“Oh, you’re asking for it!” Steven ate an entire slice, “You’re really gonna get it!” he ate a few more, he paused to focus, “Hurricane… spin… SPIIIIIIIIIT!” he jumped up while spinning, firing seeds everywhere, even on Greg, Steven laughed, “My hurricane spin spit is unbeatable!”  
Greg gasped, “By Jove! It’s full of seeds!”  
“Dad?”  
“Congratulations, son. You win by a mile!” He made a crown out of a watermelon slice, and placed it on Steven’s head, “I crown thee, Your Water-Melojesty!” he took a bow and Steven bowed back, “My liege.”  
They both started laughing uncontrollably. They soon fell asleep.  
What happened the next morning was… unexpected to say the least.  
Steven yawned and took a look around and gasped, “Holy watermelon!” he picked one up, “It… looks like me?” he looked at the others, “THEY ALL LOOK LIKE ME!?” he got up and ran to the Temple, “GARNET, AMETHYST, PEARL!!!!!!”  
Garnet looked at the watermelon Stevens, “This is very impressive.”  
“I suppose,” said Pearl, she turned to Steven, “Your mother had the ability to create and control plant life to fight by her side.”  
“Yea but Rose’s plants moved and stuff,” said Amethyst, she picked up a smaller Steven and the stem broke, “These guys do nuthin’”  
“Be careful!” said Steven, taking the small watermelon, “This one’s just a baby.”  
“Well, what are we supposed to do with all of these?” Greg asked.  
Steven thought for a moment and got a genius idea.  
Moments later, Steven had set up a little stand, with all the Melon Stevens stacked behind him, with the little one serving as a display.  
Mr. Smiley walked up to Steven’s stand, “Steven! What is going on here? Do you have a permit for this?”  
“Oh hi Mr. Smiley!” said Steven, he handed him a Watermelon, “Try one of my Watermelon Stevens!”  
Mr. Smiley took a look at it, “Alright, I’ll accept your bribe,” he took it and walked off.  
Steven smiled, he noticed Jotaro walking on the boardwalk, “Mr. Jotaro!”  
Jotaro looked over, “Oh, Steven, how are you?”  
“I’m doing just great!” he pulled out a watermelon, “Can I interest you in a Watermelon Steven?”  
Jotaro smiled, “Alright, I’ll take one,” he picked it up and tipped his cap as he walked away.  
Then Saide walked up, “Hey Steven, what’s all this about?”  
“Oh, just a little side project I got going on.”  
“Heh, nice. So how’d you get these handsome watermelons?”  
“Let’s just say there’s a little Steven in all of them!” he said.  
“Haha, great sales pitch,” said Sadie, “So how much for one?”  
“Oh, I was just gonna give it to you,” Steven offered.  
“C’mon I insist,” said Sadie, “I love supporting local businesses.”  
“WOOOOOAH!” Ronaldo yelled from the other side of the boardwalk. He ran up and took a picture of one of the Melon Stevens, “I need to put this on my blog!” he began typing on his phone.  
“Steven, you shouldn't keep your customers waiting like this. I'll just give you five bucks and take one, okay?” Sadie took one and walked away.  
Ronaldo looked up from his phone, “Wait you’re selling them for only five bucks?!” He turned around, “HEY EVERYONE! COME GET A WATERMELON STEVEN! HE’S PRACTICALLY GIVING THEM AWAY!”  
A crowd of people came to buy the watermelon Stevens until eventually every last one was gone. Steven then took his baby melon back down to Greg’s car wash to count his money.  
“Ya know Steven, you can just ask me for money since Marty gave me that huge royalty check,” said Greg.  
“I know, dad,” said Steven, “It’s just people insisted on paying for them,” just then, Onion walked up to him and poked him, “Oh hi Onion, how can I help you?”  
Onion pointed to the baby melon.  
“Oh no, he’s not for sale, sorry Onion.”  
Onion snatched the small melon and ran off.  
“Hey! Onion! Come back with my baby melon!” Steven ran after him.  
Suddenly, the baby melon sprung to life, and a vine shot from his back and dug itself into the ground, Onion was startled and ran away.  
“Baby melon!? You’re alive?” said Steven.  
The small melon disconnected the vine coming from his back and ran up to Steven to give him a hug, “Wait… if this melon is alive then-” suddenly, vines shot from the ground around him and all flowed into the car wash, Greg jumped out of the way.  
“Steven! What happened?” said Greg.  
“I dunno, let’s get somewhere safe!” he and Greg ran away from the Car Wash and noticed all of Beach City was being overrun by vines, and out of them, more Watermelon Stevens were growing, “This is awful!”  
They made their way to the Temple. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were trying their hardest to fight off Melon Stevens.  
“Yo! I see Steven and Greg! The meat ones!” Said Amethyst.  
“Go get them, I’ll cover you!” said Garnet.  
Amethyst rolled into a ball and dashed through the crowd of Melon Stevens, Steven and Greg grabbed onto her, she whipped at Garnet, who caught the whip and pulled all 3 toward her.  
“Steven, Greg, are you alright?” Garnet asked.  
“We’re fine,” said Steven, “Any word from Ben or Max?”  
“We haven’t heard from them,” said Pearl, “Though I’d be surprised if they let this get the best of them!”  
“I’m gonna make some calls,” said Steven, “I gotta make sure everyone’s ok,” He pulled out his phone and called Ben.  
“Hello?” said Ben, who was in the Rust Bucket with Max, “Yea we’re fine, these watermelon vines screwed up the RV pretty bad, Grandpa is not happy… oh yeah, and we’re trapped inside.”  
“We uh, really could use your help,” said Steven on the other line, “I sorta gave life to an army of bloodthirsty watermelons.”  
Ben sighed, “Yeah that sounds about right,” he slapped the Omnitrix and turned into Ghostfreak, “Grandpa, I’m gonna go help Steven fight evil watermelons,” he announced as he phased through the Rust Bucket.  
“Yeah, be back by eight,” said Max, “...Wait can you-” he noticed that Ben had already left, “Help me get out…”   
Ben flew above Beach City and saw that the whole town was covered in vines, with Watermelon Stevens running around everywhere.  
“Jeez, he wasn’t kidding,” said Ben. He flew down to the Temple.  
Steven hung up his phone, “Ok, I called Connie, she and her parents are fine.”  
“The entire city is covered in vines,” said Ben, “How exactly did this happen?”  
“I gave everyone in town a Watermelon that looked like me, and I guess they were all alive?” Steven said sheepishly.  
“And how many did you give out?” Ben asked.  
Steven looked away, “Uh… a lot?”  
Ben sighed, “Great, come on, let's go save the city,” Steven picked up the baby melon and grabbed onto Ben and they floated above the city, “Ok, who’s first?”  
“Jeez, I dunno,” said Steven, suddenly he got a notification on his phone, “What the- Ronaldo is streaming?”  
Steven clicked the notification, and was met with Ronaldo screaming, “THEY’RE EVERYWHERE! I’M SORRY FOR TRYING TO DISSECT YOU!”  
“Alright, Ronaldo it is,” Ben floated to Beach Citywalk Fries.   
They went to the back entrance just as Ben timed out, they entered and saw Ronaldo getting punched by a group of Melon Stevens.  
“Ya know, part of me thinks he deserves it,” said Ben.  
“Ben that’s mean!” said Steven.   
Ben shrugged as they went to pull Ronaldo away from the Melon Stevens, “Wait…” he said.  
“What’s wrong?” Steven asked.  
“My… phone…” Ronaldo said weakly. Ben rolled his eyes and pulled him out.  
The Watermelon Stevens approached the door as Ben quickly shut it, “You have a key?” he asked Ronaldo.  
“I did,” he said, “it was right next to my PHONE!”  
“Ugh, I’ll just fly us out of here,” Ben smacked the watch… nothing happened, “Shoot, it’s still recharging, we gotta make a break for it!”  
They snuck behind buildings, staying out of the sight of the Watermelon Stevens. They passed by the Beach City Hotel.  
“Hey wait,” said Steven, “Isn’t this the apartment Mr. Jotaro lives at-”  
The door shot open, Jotaro was breathing heavily and covered in Watermelon juice, Jolyne was close behind.  
“What. Did. You. Do?” Jotaro growled at Steven.  
“I-I-I didn’t do it on purpose!” Steven said, “My powers aren't very consistent, I guess my mom could bring plants to life or something? I don’t know exactly how it works.”  
“Clearly,” said Jotaro.  
“We gotta make sure everyone’s safe,” said Ben, “We were gonna bring Ronaldo to the Temple.”  
“I’ll handle it,” said Jotaro, “I’ll get the fry kid to safety, you two go help everyone else.”  
“I’m gonna go with them,” Jolyne said.  
Jotaro groaned, “Fine, stay safe, JoJo.”  
Jolyne gave a thumbs up as the 3 went off.  
“Ok, I know Sadie picked one up,” said Steven.  
“Big Donut, got it,” said Ben.   
They ran to the back of the store and opened the door, Lars was curled up in a corner and Sadie was fighting off a Watermelon Steven using a broom handle.  
“Lars! Help me!” She yelled.  
“No! That thing’s freaky, I don’t wanna catch a disease!” Lars yelled back. He noticed Steven and his friends standing in the doorway, “Steven! You have super powers right? Go deal with that!”  
“Uh, Ben, you’re a bit better at the whole hand to hand fighting thing,” said Steven.  
Ben tapped the Omnitrix, “Sorry, watch is still dead… which is weird it’s usually conveniently recharged by now.”  
Steven took a deep breath, “I guess I have no choice,” he said in a faux deep voice. He ran up to his watermelon doppelganger and opened his arms, he grabbed the watermelon’s arms and formed a bubble around him, then rolled it away, “Ok! Let’s get out of here!”  
They went out the back, and looked to make sure there were no melon Stevens, “Alright,” said Ben, “We already made sure the fry place is fine, we gotta get to Funland and help Mr. Smiley.”  
“We have to go all the way there?” said Lars.  
“Yeah, obviously,” said Ben.  
“You know what, I'll stay in the Big Donut,” Lars said, backing away, until Sadie grabbed him and pulled him back.  
“Ok, everyone,” said Ben, “We have to be quiet, these things aren’t much on their own but in a group they can really cause some damage.”  
Everyone nodded and followed Ben. They tiptoed past groups of Watermelon Stevens. Suddenly, the group heard someone help in pain behind them, everyone whipped around and saw Lars on the ground, with a vine around his ankle.   
Watermelon Stevens from all around turned and faced them, “Run!” Ben yelled.  
The Watermelon Stevens swarmed them, and blocked the path to Funland. Ben tried to ram through the blockade but was pushed back.  
“We’re trapped!” Steven yelled.  
“Don’t worry!” said Koichi from behind the barricade, “Echoes, ACT2!” a green, armored Stand flew above the water Melon Stevens, then wrote, ドラララ on the ground, (Translates to Dorarara) and out of the letters came a flurry of punches, launching the Watermelon Stevens in the air and they shattered upon impact with the ground, (of course, everyone but Steven just saw the Watermelon Stevens get destroyed).  
“Koichi! How’d you do that?” Steven asked.  
“I’ll explain later,” Koichi responded, “We gotta get somewhere safe!”  
“Everyone else is at the Temple,” Ben explained.  
“Alright, ACT2, make a path!” Koichi commanded. His Stand wrote out ヒョオオ (Woosh) and made a gust of wind, pushing away all the Melon Stevens. Everyone including Koichi and Mr. Smiley ran to the Temple as fast as they could.  
When they finally arrived, they saw Jotaro pinned down by a bunch of Melon Stevens, as well as the Crystal Gems… and Ronaldo.  
“Steven!” Amethyst cried, “They’re gonna put me in the ground!” a few Watermelon Stevens were digging a hole next to her. Another brought a bouquet of flowers, “Those flowers are lovely!” Amethyst said while still crying.  
Garnet and Pearl tried their best to fight off the Melons but were ultimately overpowered.  
“No…” Steven said, “Everyone stop!” he yelled.  
And all the Melon Stevens all obeyed.  
“...what?” Steven asked, “Are you… listening to me?” they all stared at him blankly, “Uh… can you get off my friends?” the Stevens released everyone.  
“Dude!” Amethyst yelled, “You could’ve done that the whole time?”  
“I didn’t know!” Steven defended, he cleared his throat, “Attention Watermelon Stevens! You all hurt my friends, I know you were probably just scared and confused but this is no way to solve things… so, can you all please leave?”  
The Watermelon Stevens all nodded, and walked into the water. Baby melon patted Steven and left with the rest of the Melons.  
Steven teared up and waved good-bye.  
“...what the hell,” said Ben.   
“Your powers are freakin’ weird,” Jolyne said.  
“Hold on,” said Garnet, she looked down at the ground, “These vines are moving,” she knelt down and picked one up, it wrapped itself around her wrist and she tried to break herself free.   
Steven ran over and tried to help, but it was too strong, and it pulled both into the pile of vines. Ben and Jolyne ran after them and were pulled in as well.  
Moments later, they all wound up inside the car wash, a big plantlike monster was in the center of the room, it held Steven, Ben, JoJo and Garnet in it’s vines.  
“This is why the Watermelon Stevens were attacking!” Garnet said, “This corrupted Gem was controlling them!”  
“That’s really mean!” Steven yelled at the Gem Monster. The Monster growled at Steven and tightened its grip on him.  
“We gotta do something!” Jolyne yelled.  
Ben heard the Omnitrix beep, “Oh finally,” he pulled his arm out of the vine and smacked the faceplate of the watch. Ben turned into a green alien, with one eye, a venus flytrap around his head, and 6 tentacles for legs, he looked down at himself, “Woah, dude! A new alien!”  
“Well don’t just stand there, do something!” Jolyne yelled.  
“Uh, yeah… as soon as I figure out what he does,” Ben said.  
The gem monster shot it’s vines at Ben, he raised his arms and the vines halted.  
“Aw yeah! I got plant powers!” Ben said, he aimed at the monster and the vines swung back at it. The monster growled and shot thorns at Ben, but he blocked the attack by forming bark on his arm as armor, Ben shot his own thorns at the Gem monster who cried out in pain, it shook all the vines making Ben stumble a bit.  
“Now would be a great time to off that thing!” Jolyne yelled.  
“Alright, I think I got a hang of this guy now!” Ben said, he dug one of his arms into the ground and formed roots that surrounded the Gem monster, then they closed in on it and squeezed until it’s physical form couldn’t take the pressure. The monster poofed along with all the vines around Beach City, leaving nothing but a Moss Agate gemstone.  
Garnet picked it up and bubbled it, “Nice work, Ben,” she gave a thumbs up.  
“The watermelon Stevens have a new home, and the Gem monster was defeated,” said Steven.  
“Sounds like we got everything!” Ben said.  
“Things like these have a nice way of wrapping up,” Steven said with a smile.  
“With all loose ends tied up,” Jolyne said.  
Meanwhile, at the Rust Bucket, Grandpa Max stumbled out of the RV, “I’ve been in there for hours,” he looked around and saw no vines or sentient watermelons, “And I missed all the excitement, great.”


	17. Time Out

Ben and the Gems stood in a battle position. Two corrupted Gem monsters stood on the other side of the Beach. One resembled a snake with a blade at the end of its tail, and the other was a small quadrupedal beast with horns.   
The snake monster zipped around and jumped at Pearl, she blocked its attack with her spear, and she threw it away from her.  
“Looks like these things mean business!” said Ben, “It’s hero time!” Ben slapped the Omnitrix’s dial, and in a flash, he turned into… Grey Matter.  
Amethyst looked at Ben’s form, “Uh dude, I don’t think ‘Super Shrimp’ is gonna be very useful against these things.”  
“Hm, this was not the alien form I intended to become. However, I’m sure I can find a way to turn the tides of battle in my favor!” Ben said. He looked around and saw that the Gems went and attacked the Corrupted Gems before he finished talking, “Hm, I suppose it can get rather grating to hear my long-winded dialogue, but starting the battle prematurely is just rude.” Grey Matter analyzed the situation, “Both of these creatures are far too big for me to fight, however, I could most likely construct some sort of machine or device that can dissipate their physical forms so that one of the Gems can trap their Gemstone in a bubble.”   
“Ben, did you come up with something?” Steven asked.  
“Of course!” Grey Matter said while putting a finger in the air, “You see if Amethyst was to tie up the turquoise monster and if Pearl used her spear to catapult it, Garnet could then punch the beast into the serpent-like one, and finally-” Grey Matter was cut off by the Snake monster whipping its tail into him, launching him away. As Grey Matter was flying he slapped his forehead, “Oh dear. I had forgotten to account for the time it would take for me to explain my plan!” Grey Matter slammed back first into someone on the beach, “Ow, well, that was embarrassing.”  
“No way!” Said the person he collided with. Grey Matter turned around and saw Ronaldo staring at him, wide-eyed, “I can’t believe it! One of them came right to me!”  
“R-Ronaldo? What are you doing?” Grey Matter said, backing away slowly.  
Ronaldo quickly snatched him up, “This is great! a real Snake person! Haha… hahaha! HAHAHAHA!”   
“Ronaldo, stop! It’s me, Ben!” he cried.  
“SILENCE YOU SNERSON!” Ronaldo yelled, “I finally found one of you! Just wait until the forums get a look at you!”  
“Uh oh,” Ben said as Ronaldo ran off.  
Meanwhile, the Gems finished off the two corrupted Gems, Steven bubbled the two gems. “Two in one day! That almost never happens!”  
“And we were able to take them down quickly!” Pearl said.  
“Yeah, no thanks to, ‘Brain Frog” or whatever Ben calls that thing,” Amethyst said.  
“Wait a minute,” Steven looked around, “Where is Ben?”  
“Probably left after being embarrassed like that,” Amethyst laughed.  
“Hm, I guess,” Steven said, “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”  
Ben didn’t turn up.  
Later that day, as the sun was going down, Grandpa Max went to the Temple to speak with the Gems.  
Max knocked on the door and Pearl answered, “Oh hello Max!” she said, “What brings you here?”  
“I haven’t seen Ben since he came over here, is he still here?” Max asked.  
“No, he left after we fought those corrupted Gems, have you asked Jotaro?” she asked.  
“I have, he hasn’t seen him either,” said Max, “I hope everything is ok.”  
“We should go and look for him!” Steven said, “What if Kevin and Peridot attacked him, or Vilgax, or… I dunno, Sublimino, or something!”  
“Now calm down,” Max said, “I’m sure whatever Ben got into he can handle until we find him, come on, let’s find Ben.”

Ronaldo shoved Ben into a glass jar and covered it with a lid with small holes in it, “Ronaldo, you fool! I am not a snake person, I’m not even reptilian, my species is amphibious!”   
“A likely story,” Ronaldo said, “Unfortunately I know that Snake People are known for their tricks! I won’t believe a thing you say!”  
Grey Matter reached behind him and tried messing with the Omnitrix, “That’s so strange, it should have timed out by now!”  
“Are you even listening to me?!” Ronaldo yelled.  
“Of course not, your ramblings are inane and mindless, or to put it simply for your simple mind, I think you’re dumb,” Grey Matter growled.  
Ronaldo gasped loudly, “Insults will get you nowhere!”   
“Ok,” said Grey Matter, he continued fiddling with the watch, “Why must it be on my back? This is SO uncomfortable.”  
“So that’s the device that allows you to disguise yourself!” Ronaldo said.  
“No, you oaf it’s... “ Grey Matter got an idea, “Yes, and I bet you’d like to see this… level 20 alien tech up close wouldn’t you?”  
“Of course!” said Ronaldo.  
“Well, then why don’t you take me out so I can show it to you!”   
“Oh, of course, I wi-” Ronaldo stopped, “Wait! You’re trying to trick me!” Ronaldo sat down at his computer, “Enough games, I’m going to tell the forums!” he grabbed his phone and snapped a picture of Grey Matter, plugged his phone into his computer, and uploaded the picture, with the caption, Finally, after 7 years of intense searching, I found a snake person (snerson) here in Beach City. TAKE THAT all you non-believers! I’m obviously not going to upload this to my blog, as I do not want any of the “normies” to see this and accuse me of lying. “And, post!”  
“Seven years?” Grey Matter asked, “That’s pretty pathetic you know.”  
“You don’t have to be so rude,” Ronaldo said.  
“Yeah, well you don’t have to be such a dunce, and you didn’t have to kidnap me!” Grey Matter yelled.  
“It was for the good of humanity!” Ronaldo yelled.  
“CEASING YOUR RESPIRATORY FUNCTIONS WOULD BE GOOD FOR HUMANITY!” Grey Matter yelled angrily.  
Ronaldo’s computer made a sound, he clicked on the notification and gasped, Grey Matter looked over, Ronaldo received a direct message from a user named foreverduke838, Dear keepbeachcityweirdofficial, We have seen your post about the small “snake person,” you captured, we are offering you $200,000 for the specimen, just mail it to-  
Grey Matter was unable to finish reading as Ronaldo picked up the jar, and placed him in a drawer, “I’m going to get a box, and I’m mailing you off, and I’m gonna be rich!”  
“You’re making a really big mistake-” Ronaldo slammed the drawer shut, “This is bad, this is really bad, ok Ben, think… I can hardly see anything in here, but perhaps I can roll the jar into the wall and it will break!” Grey Matter ran in the jar and hit the wall a few times, no luck, “Ok… perhaps I can shatter it with my fists! Yes!” He reeled back and punched it, “Ah yes, that hurts,” Grey Matter kept looking around, he examined the lid and saw that the lid was not screwed on fully, “Hm, I did not consider the possibility that I was OVER thinking this. Well then,” He opened the jar and pushed the drawer open, he looked around and ran over to the computer, and started it up, he navigated to the chatroom website he, Steven, and Jolyne recently started using, he typed in Steven’s user ID and sent him a direct message  
KBCWofficial: Steven, it’s Ben  
S.Universe: Ben?!? OMG, We’ve been looking for you!  
KBCWofficial: Ronaldo kidnapped me, he thinks I’m a snake person!  
S.Universe: Oh yeah, been there, are you in the lighthouse?  
KBCWofficial: No, I have no idea where I am. I’m stuck as Grey Matter and he’s going to mail me off somewhere!  
S.Universe: Oh no! Try and figure out where you are! We’ll get to you as soon as possible!!  
Grey Matter opened a new tab and clicked on a GPS app, he looked and turned back to the chatroom  
KBCWofficial: Ok I found the address  
S.Universe: Where are you?????  
KBCWofficial: I’m at 135  
S.Universe: Huh?  
KBCWofficial: Nice try, snake person, I’ll swiftly be deleting this account, say goodbye to your brethren!  
S.Universe: What??? No Ronaldo it’s me, Steven!  
The user you are trying to contact does not exist or has deleted their account  
“PUT ME DOWN, YOU IDIOT!” Grey Matter yelled.  
Ronaldo placed him back in the jar and screwed the lid on tight as he could, he then placed the jar in the box and duct-taped it to the bottom of the box, then he filled it with crumpled paper. He closed the box and taped it shut, put a shipping label on it, and walked out the door.

“This is really really bad!” Steven said, “Ben’s gonna be shipped off to who knows where!”  
“Well, where’s the post office then?” Jolyne asked.  
“It’s on the other side of town!” Steven said.  
“Well come on, run, run!” Jolyne commanded.  
Steven led the way, as they ran through backyards and between buildings.   
Eventually, they made it, Steven burst through the door, “JAMIE JAMIE JAMIE JAMIE!” he yelled.  
“Oh hey Steven, what can I-”  
“DID RONALDO DROP OFF A PACKAGE!?” Steven asked.  
“Steven, I can’t disclose that information,” Jamie said.  
“Is Barb here?”   
“Yeah, just a sec,” Jamie walked to the back room.  
Barb walked out from the back room, “Heya Steve-o, how can I help you?”  
“Barb, did Ronaldo drop a package off here?” Steven asked.  
“Yeah, why?”  
“My friend’s in there!” Steven said.  
“Huh!?”  
“He’s really small and Ronaldo thinks he’s a snake person but that’s only partially accurate, anyways, can you get that package for me?”  
“Sorry Steven, the truck picked that one up a bit ago, it’s on it’s way to the airport.”  
“AIRPORT!? Oh jeez, uhh, thank’s Barb! C’mon JoJo let's hurry!” He and Jolyne ran out of the post office.  
“Oh, alright, bye Steven! Hope you find your friend,” Barb said. She sighed, “Weird kid.”  
“We’re running out of options here,” Jolyne said.  
“We have one last shot, we have to get to the airport and save Ben!” said Steven.  
“How do you plan to get to the airport? It’s like, right outside the city!” Jolyne asked.  
“I have an idea, let’s run to Dad’s car wash!”   
They made their way to Greg’s car wash, Steven tried to explain but he ran out of breath.  
Steven gasped, “Dad… Ben… he… airport,” he wheezed.  
“What?” Greg asked.  
“Ben’s stuck as Grey Matter and he’s being mailed off to some other country, we gotta go save him,” Jolyne explained.  
“What!? Oh geez,” Greg said, “Let's get in my car, come on!”  
“What car?” Jolyne asked.  
“Uh, that one,” Greg pointed to the nice, vintage car parked next to his van.  
“Wait, that's YOURS?” Jolyne exclaimed, “I thought you were cleaning that!”  
“Wow, that's a hit in the ol’ ego,” Greg said.  
“COME ON WE GOTTA GO!” Steven yelled.  
“Right, sorry,” Greg hopped in the car and started it, Steven sat in the front passenger's seat and Jolyne in the back. They quickly drove through Beach City and straight to the airport.  
The car ride was quiet, until Steven opened the glove box and grabbed one of Greg’s CDs, “How about we lighten the mood a bit?” he put the CD in and it played the first track.  
“I know I'm not that tall  
I know I'm not that smart  
But let me drive my van into your heart~  
Let me drive my van into your heart!”  
Jolyne cleared her throat, “Uh Steven, maybe we should-”  
“Wait wait this is my favorite part!” Steven sang along, “And if we look out of place, well baby that's okay! I’ll drive us into outer space where we can’t hear what people say!”  
“Steven,” said Greg.  
“What?”  
“We’re here,” JoJo explained.  
“...Oh.”  
Steven and JoJo jumped out of the car, “Alright I’ll stay here with the car,” Greg said, “You kids try to track Ben down.”  
“We’ll be back soon!” Steven said. They both ran to the airport, “I just realized something JoJo.”  
“What’s that?” she responded.  
“How are we gonna find Ben with all the other packages?”  
“I’ve got something in mind!”  
They ran to the back, JoJo motioned for Steven to stay behind a few crates. She walked over and purposely bumped into one of the security guards walking around the back entrance.  
“Oh jeez kid, are you ok?” said the guard.  
“No,” Jolyne said, she faked a tear, “I can’t find my dad!”   
“Wuh oh, uh, here kid you stay here, I’ll go get some help ok?” he instructed.  
Jolyne sniffed, “Ok…” once the guard was out of sight she motioned for Steven to come over, and she pulled out a key ring from her pocket, “Piece of cake!”  
“Woah! How’d you do that so easily?” Steven asked.  
“Heh, practice,” Jojo said, she got up and unlocked the back entrance, and they were met with a room full of conveyor belts, and hundreds upon hundreds of boxes.  
“Oh no!” Steven said, “We’re never gonna find Ben!”  
“Heck no!” Jojo said, “We’re gonna find him, just look for a box that's not too small but not too big, and keep calling his name so he can yell back!”  
“Alright, ok, let’s go!” Steven and JoJo both hopped on separate conveyor belts and started looking, calling out Ben’s name and opening boxes.  
“Any luck?” Steven asked from above her.  
“Nothing,” JoJo replied, suddenly she saw a box that was shaking slightly, “Ben?” She ran closer to it, “Ben!”  
“Jolyne?” Ben said from inside the box, “I’M IN HERE!” he shouted, suddenly he felt his box tipping over, “Uh oh…”  
Ben’s box was hanging precariously off the edge of the conveyor belt, Jolyne tried to get to the box but she tripped on a few other packages, she saw the box containing her friend fall, “No!” She reached out in a final desperate attempt to grab it and… she did, she looked at her hand and the box was there, “Woah, how did-”  
“Hey, kid! What are you doing up there!?” Yelled the security guard.  
“Shoot! Steven, we gotta go!” JoJo jumped down a few conveyer belts and onto the floor, where she and Steven exited the room.  
“Did you find Ben?” Steven asked.  
“Yeah, he’s right here,” JoJo opened the box and saw the small, terrified alien in a glass jar. Jolyne ditched the Box and kept running. They reached the main area of the airport, with countless people shuffling around getting to their flights, “We can lose the guard in the crowd!” Jolyne said. She and Steven bolted past the other security guards, slid past the scanners, and into the huge crowd, leaving the security guards lost.  
They snuck to the door and finally met Greg in the parking lot and jumped into the car. Jolyne unscrewed the jar and let Grey Matter out, upon hitting the seat of the car Ben shifted back to his human form, “OH sure, NOW it works.”  
“You alright, Ben?” Steven asked.  
“No,” Ben said bluntly, “I’m so freakin’ hungry dude.”  
“There’s a Mr. Smoothies close by,” Greg said.  
“That sounds really good right now,” Ben said.  
They left the airport’s parking lot to get some smoothies and head back home.

Later that night…  
Ronaldo was up at his computer at 3:00 AM, checking the forums and telling his friends about how great it was that he finally found a snake person, then suddenly, the lights went out, Ronaldo got up and flicked the light switch, nothing, he shrugged and sad back down at his computer… then, his computer flicked off. He looked and saw that the computer was unplugged, he went to plug it back in and waited for his PC to boot up, it turned off again, “Oh come on! He said. He looked down and saw that this time, the cable was ripped to shreds.  
Ronaldo backed up in fear, “Where are you? Are you a snake person here to avenge your friend?”  
Ronaldo suddenly felt a squeeze at his neck, the invisible force pushed him into the wall and raised him up, Ghostfreak made himself visible and glared at Ronaldo.  
“Snake people. Are not. REAL!” He yelled, he then let Ronaldo drop to the ground, “DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN AND I WON'T BE SO MERCIFUL!” Ghostfreak chuckled as he disappeared.  
Ronaldo stared into the empty space left by Ghostfreak, breathing heavily.


End file.
